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They clicked the Viewmaster in their mind's eye and watched an event replay over and over, reporting the same emotions as when it first happened. People in their research consistently placed themselves in the spotlight of their nostalgia. "The defining features of nostalgia in England are also the defining features in Africa and South America," said Dr. Children as young as seven were nostalgizing, looking back fondly on birthday parties and vacations, the researchers discovered. It was through Sedikides' and his colleagues' studies that they found nostalgia to be a worldwide phenomenon, with roots in the emotional and physical, but not pathological.
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The word comes from the Greek nostos, meaning homecoming, and the accompanying pain, algos. Military physicians speculated that its prevalence among Swiss mercenaries abroad was due to earlier damage to the soldiers' ear drums and brain cells by the unremitting clanging of cowbells in the Alps, the New York Times reports. Nostalgia first began in the late 17 th century as a pathological disorder, one that manifested itself in those maladapted to the present and afraid of the future. "So you end up with a stronger feeling of belonging and affiliation, and you become more generous toward others." From The Beginning Constantine Sedikides, professor of social and personality psychology at the University of Southampton. "Nostalgic stories often start badly, with some kind of problem, but then they tend to end well, thanks to help from someone close to you," said Dr. Not only does nostalgizing, as the researchers call it, help us feel physically warmer when we do it we also feel more hopeful about our futures and emotionally closer to those around us. Reminiscing helps us feel better about the present and more hopeful about our future.Ī wealth of knowledge has arisen in recent years speaking to the idea that nostalgia has psychological and physiological benefits. This nostalgia is good for us in more ways than one, research shows. We often greet our fondest memories with whimsy and longing - putting our follies of youth on replay to relieve the stressors of adulthood and soothe the aches and pains of a life punched up with deadlines.