Keeping it Together: Why holiday nostalgia hurts so good

There’s a special magic in the air during the holiday season that, for lack of better words, hurts so good. When the pine tree sales spring up around town and holiday-themed commercials air on TV, a wistful longing for the memories of Christmases past pools in the pit of my stomach in a weird warm and fuzzy yet unnerving kind of way. 

Ask any psychologist, and they’ll call it nostalgia. I call it confusion. 

Hi, I'm Katie Camero, a health and wellness reporter with Paste BN. This week I dove into the research on nostalgia to better understand why it's so bittersweet.

Nostalgia has always been an ambivalent emotional experience, so much so that it used to be considered a disease of the brain or mind. Although dwelling on the past has its downsides, decades of research show that nostalgia’s net effect on our psychological well being is overwhelmingly positive — boosting mood, improving self-esteem, encouraging connection with others, increasing meaning in life and inspiring optimism about the future. 

“Nostalgia is an emotional cocktail of positive and negative feelings. We tend to think of nostalgia as turning inward, like you’re withdrawing from life, but it’s actually energizing and is a critical ingredient in keeping holiday traditions alive,” said Clay Routledge, an existential psychologist and author of “Past Forward: How Nostalgia Can Help You Live a More Meaningful Life.” “It has a self-regulatory effect where even though you may feel sad or stressed, nostalgia reminds us that life is bigger than this one moment.” 

The holiday season is typically a time of celebration and joy, but for many people, it’s anything but that. Death, divorce, childhood abuse, a recent layoff — there may be more reasons to dread than enjoy the holidays, but reflecting on a complicated past can help you more than you might assume. 

Continue reading to learn why, and while you're here, check out the other work my team published this week.