Research suggests that nostalgia can help people cope with dementia, grief, and even the disorientation experienced by immigrants and refugees. Nostalgia may even help people cope with the COVID-19 pandemic, ScienceNews reports. In a study published in Social, Psychological and Personality Science, researchers found when some lonely, unhappy people reminisced about better, pre-pandemic moments, they felt happier. The results suggest that nostalgia can serve as an antidote to loneliness during the pandemic, the researchers conclude. A key question, though, is if nostalgia’s benefits can persist beyond that fleeting moment of remembrance. Wildschut’s team found that nostalgia’s benefits, in terms of happiness, faded after just a day or two. But nostalgia-induced happiness persisted for a couple days when the researchers reminded people to think about that special memory. While nostalgia therapy may not be for everybody, it provides hopeful and promising results.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/nostalgia-mental-health-benefits-hard-times-pandemic
