A few millennia ago, the Greek Philosopher Heraclitus enlightened us with some enduring wisdom: change is the only constant in life. Undeniably, change is something we’ve all had to adjust to over the past year. Huge sacrifices have been made and for most of us, life has changed drastically. The unfamiliarity of the current situation and uncertainty about the future have left us feeling disconcerted. In response to these apprehensions, many of us are experiencing feelings of nostalgia.
How many times in the last year have you looked back on fond memories in better times? It’s a bittersweet feeling. Scrolling through your old Insta posts and recollecting those memories and the emotions tied to them can be heart-warming. However, when you’re brought back down to Earth by your pile of reading staring you in the face and your looming assessments ahead, we’re left feeling melancholy and pessimistic. Naturally, we’ve been retrospective, thinking about all the things we took for granted before like meeting friends, nights out and enjoying a fancy meal at your favourite restaurant.
Interestingly, there’s a subtle difference between nostalgia and sentimentality that has important implications in this discussion. When you conjure those memories in your mind, do you feel fuzzy and warm, content in the knowledge that that time did in fact exist? That’s sentimentality. Or do you look back with bitterness and longing, wishing for it to return? For many of us, the latter resonates more. Nostalgia has long been associated with negative emotions. In fact, according to the Association for Psychological Science, up until the early 20th-century nostalgia was regarded as a psychiatric disorder with symptoms such as insomnia, anxiety and depression.
It’s no surprise that many of us are feeling this way. While studies have shown that feelings of nostalgia can also remind us we’re valued and consequently counteract the effects of loneliness, the same study found that loneliness often triggers nostalgia.
While it may be the case for some that we’re actually spending more time with our loved ones, we’ve all experienced some form of loneliness over the past year; whether that’s living entirely alone, the absence of friends, being in lockdown away from your partner, or just a general emptiness owing to the lack of social interaction. But nostalgia is a natural response to this huge change in our social habits. It’s a universal feeling too: recent studies have shown that it occurs in all cultures and across all age groups.
Tim Wildschut, a psychologist at the University of Southampton, summarises the feeling as ‘a psychological immune response that is triggered when you experience little bumps in the road’ which ‘act as a buffer against existential threats.’ But his research shows that we can learn to embrace the positive emotions associated with nostalgia rather than allow it to always negatively affect us. Wildschut collaborated on a study at the University of Southampton which found that recalling happy memories can boost our optimism about the future. Remembering how things were, hoping for their return, and reminding ourselves that things will eventually be the same again, can reassure us about what the future holds. Considering the bump we’ve all endured this year is an especially large one, this explains why many of us have experienced this ubiquitous phenomenon more frequently than usual.
Clay Routledge, a psychologist at North Dakota State University says, ‘many are turning to nostalgia, even if they do not consciously realise it, as a stabilising force and a way to keep in mind what they cherish most.’ Rather than wistfully longing for something we can’t control, reminiscing about happier days should act as a reminder of what we value most. After all, the pandemic has certainly taught us to appreciate what we have in the present as well as what we’ve lost.
This week Boris’ roadmap out of lockdown brought hope; the end is finally in sight. In the meantime, don’t be afraid to embrace nostalgia. Remember what it felt like to sit in the beer garden of Rose and Crown with a cold pint in hand and the warmth of the sun on your back. Rather than feel disheartened that it’s out of reach, for now, rest assured that once again in the near future, that all-too-familiar feeling will be with you once more.