 Hi everyone! To begin, we at Psych2Go would like to thank all of our viewers for their continuous love and appreciation. It's your support that enables us to bring you quality content regarding all things psychology. Psych2Go's vision is to make psychology accessible for everyone, as well as occasionally covering topics around mental health. Our mission is to help everyone become more self-aware of the very psychological factors that affect everyone's lives. Nostalgia is something that most of us can relate to feeling at some point in our lives. It's a bittersweet sense of longing for the places, relationships, or experiences lost to one's past. Despite being a fairly universal experience that spans across countries and cultures, nostalgia has had to endure a largely negative reputation over the years. Nostalgics are often accused of dwelling in the past, or romanticizing past events instead of viewing them as they really happened. Is this attitude unwarranted? A growing body of research implies that nostalgia could actually have a diverse set of positive and negative psychological implications. Here are five reasons why our relationship with nostalgia is a little more complex than simply taking off those rose-tinted glasses. Recent research indicates that nostalgic thinking can actually exasperate depression if an individual views their past in a bad light or negatively compares the present to the past. Lingering too long on these unhealthy thoughts leads to a pattern of rumination and depression, whereby the individual is likely to become entrenched in the past. Similarly, feeling nostalgic for a romanticized past than an individual considers lost has been linked to worsening feelings of depression and psychological harm. In short, nostalgia can quickly become an unhealthy habit if we fixate on memories that stop us from moving on or make us feel poorly about our current life situations. 2. Nostalgia Helps Self-Esteem Recalling happy memories of people and places with which we share an important connection has been found to raise levels of self-esteem, particularly in those who enjoy engaging with nostalgic thoughts more than others. Basically, the more time we spend feeling nostalgic about good memories, the more reason we have to feel good about who we are, who would have thought. 3. Nostalgia Can Encourage Us To Aim Towards The Future Nostalgia is not only a past facing emotion. Enjoying nostalgia has been linked to higher levels of optimism for the future. Cherishing memories instead of feeling trapped by them provides us with the confidence and motivation to move forward. By using nostalgia as a psychological resource, we can feel inspired to create more positive memories by exploring new situations and working towards new goals. 4. Nostalgia Affects The Sense Of Self Big life changes such as moving away from home, losing someone close to us, or starting a new career can be challenging. These events sometimes cause us to question who we are and can affect our sense of self as we begin to feel disconnected from the identity we had before our lives changed. Studies have revealed that we can restore and mediate identity during challenging times by engaging with nostalgic thoughts to remind ourselves where we come from, who we are, and what we love. 5. Nostalgia Makes Us Feel More Connected To The World Around Us We're not just nostalgic for the past, but also who we spent the past with. Nostalgia often involves fondly remembering old friends, family members, relationships, and the good times we shared. By reliving these social connections through memory, nostalgia reminds us we are loved, accepted, and gives us a sense of belonging in this world. Ultimately, the important takeaway from this is that nostalgia can be good or bad for us depending on how we choose to engage with it. Indulging and a little nostalgia can be a good thing as long as you aren't using it to preoccupy yourself with aspects of the past that cause you pain. Are you nostalgic at heart? Do you catch yourself reminiscing moments of your past? Do they leave you feeling motivated or bring on melancholy? Comment and let us know how you cope with nostalgia. Also, if you find this video helpful, be sure to share it with someone who would benefit from it too. Don't forget to subscribe for more content and check out the sources in our video description. Thanks for watching!