Nostalgia and Reminiscence - can it be good for your mental health?
Words by Felicity Pryke
If you are getting on a bit in years, you will know all about how nostalgia gets packaged up and sold back to us. I didn’t realise this until the 90s - the decade where I was a teenager - became primed for the “nostalgia marketing”. As the 25th anniversaries of Oasis v Blur, Euro 96 and the Spice Girls ticked by I find myself experiencing a mix of emotions, a curious combination of joy and sadness.
The word ‘Nostalgia’ derives from the Greek nostos (homecoming) and algos (pain, distress). It was coined in the 17th Century to describe the particular type of homesickness experienced by Swiss servicemen. It was considered a pathological disease up until the early 20th Century and considered to be potentially fatal. In the first two years of the US Civil War there were 13 recorded deaths due to ‘nostalgia’.
So, is nostalgia now a good thing? I’m not so sure. There is a difference between nostalgia and reminiscence. Reminiscence is the act of recalling past life experiences and transporting yourself back to that time. Nostalgia often adds a tinge of yearning for that time again and this is what creates that bittersweet mix of emotions. And I guess this is what makes it sellable. You can’t sell someone’s memories back to them unless you promise to take them back to that time when we were all younger, thinner, more attractive and had the promise of our lives ahead of us.
If we can focus particularly on reliving positive events from our past while not pining to return to the “good old days”, we can boost several aspects of our mental well being. Reminiscence can have many benefits:
Makes you realise how your past has shaped your present. When we take ourselves back, we can see all the experiences that made us the people we are today.
Reinforces your sense of identity. Those experiences may also have caused us to put up barriers or lose sight of who we are. By reminiscing we can reconnect with the person we were before we became caught up in our responsibilities.
Reminds us of our ability to achieve or overcome obstacles. In particular, the difficulties we’ve surmounted bring us to where we are today. If you’re having a testing time, reminiscing to previous troubles can strengthen your confidence that you CAN get past this.
Helps you reconnect with your dreams and ideals. Maybe those childhood dreams of being a popstar or an astronaut are long gone but that doesn’t mean we can’t rekindle our love for those early passions.
Enriches our social relationships. Especially if we can reminisce in company!
Enhances your appreciation of the present. The good old days weren’t always good! If we look realistically at our past, we can be thankful for human progress.
Pure pleasure in remembering happy, funny, and enjoyable moments. I mean, who doesn’t love looking back on incidents that made us fall about with laughter?
More amazingly, ‘reminiscence therapy’ has in recent years increased in use in care homes and is shown to help dementia patients with both the progression of the disease and the depression and anxiety that often accompanies it.
So how can we reminisce in a way that benefits us and doesn’t cause us distress? If we can focus on the way that our past has positively impacted our present, that is a great place to start. Being realistic about younger selves is also one way around those nostalgic pangs of wanting to return to those days. Yes, you may have had fewer commitments, been more laissez faire. But the wisdom of age is a wonderful thing. Those ‘commitments’ could be your children or the security of a roof over your head.
A few ideas to get your reminiscence juices flowing:
Dig out the “memory boxes, old diaries and letters.
Spend some time with your photo albums, either physical or digital.
Look at the objects around your home. Pick them up and think about where they came from, who gifted them to you and what they mean to you.
Music is incredibly evocative when reminiscing. Create playlists that take you back to specific times.
Get creative with a scrapbook or collage of memories.
A particularly valuable way of reminiscing is to do it socially and in company. It’s far more fun and hugely increases the happiness boosting qualities. We can laugh together about the silly bits, remind each other of things we may have forgotten and encourage each other with how that time shaped our present. However, sometimes the past shouldn’t be analysed. Revelling in those happy memories and taking joy from the experience of savouring the past is one of the easiest pleasures we can have.
What if you are too young to have been caught in a “nostalgia bubble” yet? Enjoying music or culture from a time before you remember isn’t really nostalgia for you, but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it! Just remember that you will never get the full story on those times and those 70s discos or 90s Indie albums you’re currently discovering will become part of your reminiscence of the 2020s. My favourite album of all time, Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of The Moon came out 5 years before I was born. It doesn’t evoke memories of the 1970s for me but rather the time I drove down to Cornwall in 1999. Dark Side of The Moon was my soundtrack as I experienced the total eclipse and I will always remember that moment when I play that album.
Our reminiscences are very specific to ourselves, our generations and our upbringing and that’s why doing it in company is so useful. As well as the enjoyment of savouring the past with others who were there, it’s also a priceless way of preserving family history. How much do you know about your elderly relatives' younger days? We can learn a lot about our family, our locality and the world by listening to those who were there. For me this is the most essential part of reminiscing.
So next time you’re with your older relatives or friends, be curious. If they are elderly and suffering from dementia you can really help their mental and physical health by triggering some old memories. And you will benefit by opening up a true window into the past.
Felicity Pryke, is the Yoga & Happiness teacher, on a mission to empower people to take ownership of their happiness, having learnt from her own experience of falling off the hedonic treadmill that happiness is far deeper than just pleasure. Her personal journey of deconstructing and reconstructing her life through yoga and the study of the science of happiness opened her eyes to the complexity of human emotions and where happiness fits in. Based in Lancashire and teaching online, Felicity loves working with others who have become disillusioned with life and she is passionate about guiding people to build a life they don’t need to escape from.
You can find Felicity on:
Facebook: Finding Felicity Reflexology Yoga Happiness
