Is Nostalgia Beneficial or Detrimental?

In Keeping the Faith, Billy Joel sang, “If it seems like I've been lost in let's remember.  If you think I'm feeling older, and missing my younger days.  Oh, then you should have known me much better … And I'm not ashamed to say the wild boys were my friends.”

Nostalgia, of course, is not necessarily good or bad. It depends on how nostalgia translates into current thoughts, feelings, actions, and activities.

Let’s start with the potential benefits.  Nostalgia can help us recall past experiences that can be used constructively to deal with present challenges.  We gain confidence, for instance, by remembering how we successfully persevered in a difficulty school course that we had wanted to drop.  And we bolster our problem solving repertoire by recollecting how we once creatively overcame a previously threatening financial crisis.

Nostalgia also can reinforce positive features of our identity.  When reflecting on our past, we can see how our behaviors and attitudes have stood the test of time, that we have maintained our integrity to a constructive outcome despite all our trials and tribulations.  

Similarly, nostalgia can contribute to our healthful interpersonal relationships.  Like Billy Joel, family and friends often become “lost in let’s remember” to their mutual delight.  Research has suggested that to remain strong relationships need at least five positive interactions for every negative one, five supportive, constructive interactions.  And nostalgic reflections certainly can serve that purpose.

A final benefit that I will address is the stress-reducing one.  It is no secret that nostalgia can be an escape from an unpleasant present into a fondly recalled past.  That is, nostalgia can help propagate positive feelings, and positive feelings mitigate stress.  Less well-known is the fact that nostalgia can help relieve physiological discomfort.  Xinyue  Zhou and colleagues (2012) demonstrated, for instance, that pleasant nostalgia literally produced a warm feeling in their experimental subjects.  Those recalling positive nostalgic memories were less distressed and more tolerant of an induced cold condition (the cold pressor test) than were those remembering non-nostalgic autobiographical memories.

Sounds great, doesn’t it?  But our everyday experience is that while most nostalgia is pleasant, some is not.  When writing the nostalgia-supporting comments above I consistently used the verb “can” because we all know that nostalgia “can” also be detrimental.  Becoming lost in negative “let’s remember” contributes to stress, depression, and discontent.  Equally important, even “positive” nostalgia can become a distraction.  Physical and mental health demands activity and anything that lulls us into prolonged inactivity and complacency is suspect. 

References

Gottman, J. M. (1994).  What predicts divorce: The relationship between marital processes and marital outcomes.  Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Zhou, X., et al. (2012).  Heartwarming memories: Nostalgia maintains physiological comfort.. Emotion, 12, 4), 678-684.  doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0027236.