When life is gherkin time again, it helps to look back on better days. Reminiscing about good memories can boost your mood — and even reduce pain, according to a new study.
Everything was better before? Certainly not. Longingly wallowing in the past is often little more than a memory embellished by memory, which in truth was not experienced half as beautifully as it is relived. And yet nostalgia manages to trigger a pleasant contentment, even feelings of happiness. And not only that. A research team has now discovered that nostalgia also works against pain.
The pain perception of 34 participants was examined in the small cooperation study of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Liaoning Normal University. For this they were exposed to heat stimuli. At the same time, the participants viewed neutral images, but also those that reminded them of their childhood. Including those from old cartoon series or certain sweets. The test persons then rated the intensity of the perceived pain themselves using a scale, and MRI scans of the brain were also made. It turned out that pictures that triggered nostalgic feelings in the participants acted like a natural painkiller. The results have now been published in the journal “JNeurosci”.
The nostalgia triggers are everywhere
Little is known about the biological processes behind the nostalgia effect. The MRI scans have now shed a little more light on this research field. “The thalamus plays a critical role in this process of nostalgia-triggered pain relief,” study author Joe Yazhuo Kong told CNN. The thalamus therefore assumes the function of a link between nostalgia and pain. It was observed that looking at the corresponding images caused less activity in the brain areas that are linked to the perception of pain. The pain reaction was also more controlled.
The positive effects of nostalgia are not new. Other studies had found, among other things, that nostalgic thoughts alone increase pain tolerance. In the case of the chronically ill, the pain could be alleviated by writing tasks linked to nostalgia. There are many nostalgia triggers. In addition to images, music and films, taste and smell experiences can involuntarily evoke memories. Marcel Proust, for example, described this in his novel of the century “In Search of Lost Time”. In it, it is the Madeleine pastry that takes the main character back in time.
So, nostalgia can help ease pain. But she doesn’t have to. Because it is a subjective sensation, its effects vary from person to person. While some often wallow in sentimental memories and can really get lost in them, this feeling is almost foreign to others. “Nostalgia is a feeling of connection to other people,” quotes “CNN” Julie Swets, who also deals with nostalgia at Texas Christian University. “So people who tend to avoid intimacy with other people, or who prefer distance rather than close relationships, don’t benefit from nostalgia to the same extent.”
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Source: Stern
