As we approach the New Year, much of what we see and hear on the media is looking back on what was the best of the year 2019 and what was the worst! I am sometimes uncertain as to whether looking back, dwelling in the past, is helpful or not, however, I was enlightened by an article written by Tim Adams suggesting that looking back improves the look of tomorrow. “Long considered a disorder, nostalgia is now recognised as a powerful tool in the battle against anxiety and depression. Is it healthy to dwell in the past? Up until about 15 years ago, most psychologists would have suggested probably not. The habit of living in memory rather than the present, of comparing how things once were with how things are now, was for several centuries thought at best a trait to avoid and at worst a root cause of depressive illness. Nostalgia was the soldiers’ malady – a state of mind that made life in the here and now a debilitating process of yearning for that which had been lost: rose-tinted peace, happiness, loved ones. It had been considered a psychological disorder ever since the term was coined by a 17th-century Swiss army physician who attributed the fragile mental and physical health of some troops to their longing to return home— nostos in Greek, and algos, the pain that attended thoughts of it.”
Since the turn of this century, however, rather than being a malady, researchers have found that memories can help us feel good about ourselves, make sense of our journey and root us to our history. Nostalgia is both a driver of empathy and social connectedness, and a potent internal antidote for loneliness and alienation—a fact which has led to the beginnings of nostalgia-based therapies for illnesses that include clinical depression and perhaps Alzheimer’s. Some of this research is historical. Researcher, Tim Wildschut, was intrigued by the strong anecdotal evidence of women in concentration camps during the Holocaust who “responded to starvation by waxing nostalgic about shared meals with their families and arguing about recipes and so on.” A concentration camp survivor said: “We used our memories to temporarily alter our perception of the state we were in. It was not a solution, but the temporary change in perception allowed you to persevere just a bit longer. And that could be crucial.” Nostalgia helps build resources like optimism or inspiration or creativity. In difficult situations, nostalgia grounds you and gives you a base on which to evaluate the present as a temporary state, and in doing so it perhaps builds resilience.
I had no idea that nostalgia held such power! As you look back upon this past year and reflect on memories of your life, I hope that those memories strengthen you to look forward to tomorrow with hope and joy. Happy New Year!