Now, a new study suggests another potential gain from forgiving others: It may decrease our paranoia—something that could otherwise keep us locked into patterns of distrust and isolation.

In a series of experiments, researchers measured forgiveness and paranoia. In one, for example, participants completed a questionnaire measuring their tendency toward forgiving others that asked how much they agree with statements like, “I continue to punish a person who has done something I think is wrong” or “Although others have hurt me in the past, I have eventually been able to see them as good people.”

Three days later and ten days later, researchers asked participants to recall a pleasant and difficult social experience they’d had recently, and to rate how stressed and paranoid they felt after each experience. Difficult social experiences included things like not being invited to a friend’s party, being treated rudely by a store clerk, or fighting with a colleague about work issues. Ratings of paranoia came from asking people how much they agreed with statements like “Someone has it in for me” or “Someone would have harmed me if they could.”

After analyzing the results, the researchers found that all participants had higher levels of paranoia and stress for unpleasant events than for pleasant events—no surprise there. However, those who were more forgiving types experienced lower stress and paranoia in those difficult situations than people who were less forgiving.

“These findings add dispositional forgiveness to the range of psychological resources that buffer or attenuate paranoia,” write the authors.

Though the results imply a positive role for forgiveness, it’s hard to know whether more paranoid people are less forgiving or people reluctant to forgive become more paranoid. To get at this, the researchers performed another experiment in which they tried to encourage people to take on a more forgiving mindset.

Since there is no quick, easy way to do this—forgiving others can actually take a lot of effort and time—they used a proxy activity. Participants filled out a questionnaire created by the authors that supposedly measured their forgiveness tendencies, then were randomly told that they’d scored either above or below average on their willingness to forgive others who’d harmed them. After being asked to write an essay explaining why they scored the way they did, they filled out actual, scientifically validated forgiveness surveys, which indicated if they’d absorbed this view of themselves as more or less forgiving people.

Next, they were given the paranoia survey to see if being forgiving affected their scores. Those prompted to feel more forgiving scored lower on the paranoia survey than their less forgiving counterparts. This suggests that encouraging a forgiving mindset may help us avoid overreacting to harm from others.

“We conceptually replicated and extended [our] findings by demonstrating, for the first time, that forgiveness exerts a causal effect on (reduced) paranoia,” the researchers write.

Of course, it’s important that forgiveness not be coerced and that people who have harmed you aren’t simply “let off the hook.” Researchers often emphasize that forgiveness is more about personal well-being for the person who was harmed—and that doesn’t necessarily mean you need to reconcile with someone or preclude you from seeking justice.

So, if you are withholding forgiveness, it may mean you are also holding on to paranoia, making it difficult to trust others’ motivations in everyday life. If so, it could be useful to consider the work of forgiving others—not just for your own mental health, but to prevent you taking out your pain on other people.

If you commute on a bus or train, you’ve probably noticed that most people spend the ride looking at their cell phones. No doubt, they assume doing nothing but sit there would be boring, so they prefer distracting themselves. This squares with past research showing people will do almost anything to avoid boredom—even administer electric shocks to themselves.To

But results from new research suggest we should rethink that choice. We are probably underestimating how enjoyable and interesting it is to do nothing but pay attention to wherever our thoughts take us.

In a series of experiments, researchers brought Japanese university students into a lab and told them that they would soon be going into a room without their belongings to wait and do nothing but sit for 20 minutes. They were further instructed that, while waiting, they could think about anything they wanted to, but were not allowed to sleep, walk, or exercise; look at a smartphone; or consult a watch.

Before entering the room, they were asked to predict how much they’d enjoy waiting and thinking, how interesting or boring it would be, and how much it would engage them so that they’d lose track of time. Then, they went in the room to wait. Afterward, they reported how waiting actually felt—how engaging, pleasurable, interesting, or boring it was. (In some variations of the experiment, they waited in a dark room without any stimulation.)

Either way, researchers found that the participants were not good at predicting how much they’d enjoy doing nothing but think. Even in a dark room with no stimulation, they ended up being more engaged and interested than they’d anticipated.

“People don’t appreciate the real value of waiting/thinking,” says researcher Kou Murayama of the Motivation Science Lab at the University of Tübingen in Germany and coauthor of the study. “Once they engage in it, though, they appreciate it.”

To test this idea further, Murayama and his colleagues recruited another group of students and repeated the experiment. But first they asked students whether they’d rather have a 75% chance of being in a room without any stimulation or with a computer they could use to check the news. Not surprisingly, most students wanted the latter and predicted they’d enjoy waiting more if they had computer access.

Then, the researchers randomly assigned students to have a computer in the room or not and asked them to report afterward how the experience went. Despite predictions, there were no significant differences between those who waited with or without a computer; both groups liked the experience equally.

Why would this be? The students didn’t report on their actual thoughts, so it’s hard to know exactly where their minds went. But spontaneous thinking often involves mind-wandering, daydreaming, thinking about the future, or recollecting memories, all of which can have upsides. For example, daydreaming and mind-wandering have been found to improve our mood, creativity, goal-setting, and job performance (especially during a repetitive task). And thinking about the past in a nostalgic (rather than ruminative) way can make us happier and more resilient to stress.

Though it’s hard to know if these results with students would apply to the rest of us, Murayama did at least compare German students to Japanese students and found both groups underestimated the pleasure of waiting to a similar degree. This implies that it’s not necessarily a culturally-driven phenomenon, though more research would need to be done to verify that.

Overall, says Murayama, the results suggest we rethink whipping out our cell phones every time we are waiting or bored. Instead, we might benefit from having a moment to think freely about whatever catches our fancy—and enjoy ourselves just as much.

“If you find yourself checking mobile phones when there is nothing to do, try to take a moment to entertain yourself with thinking,” advises Murayama. “You may have new refreshing experiences that you did not expect.”

Have you ever regretted something you did or didn’t do in life?

If you’ve lived a long life, you probably carry many regrets, large and small. Some of my own regrets relate to my career (why did I never become a teacher and a basketball coach; a full-fledge writer), past relationships (why did I lose a good friend over a small disagreement), and parenting (why didn’t I respond instead of react well to my kid’s worries and unmet expectations?). No matter the regret, it’s hard not to wonder how things might have turned out if I’d only made a different—and better—choice at the time.  I thought I was reading this book to help some of the patients I families I meet every day in the hospice setting.   .    .well.     .     .

Ruminating on past mistakes is a downer and can lead to depression or anxiety if it continues unabated. But a new book by psychologist Robert Leahy, If Only…Finding Freedom from Regret, suggests that regrets don’t always have to bog you down. If you understand how regrets work, recognize their effect on your decision making, and find ways to manage life’s inevitable disappointments, you can suffer less from regret and, instead, use your regrets as helpful guideposts for your life.

“Regret is a part of life, but it doesn’t have to take over and hijack you,” he writes.

The nature of regret

Regret can come in different forms—for something we did (like overeating or hurting our loved one) or something we didn’t do (like not graduating from college or not asking someone out on a date). Most people have a mixture of both types, though the latter tends to make us feel worse, writes Leahy.

According to research, the most common sources of regret involve our education, career, romance, and parenting (in that order). That’s because we tend to regret things that reflect bigger concerns and opportunities in life, rather than what we ate for breakfast.

Culture can affect how people experience regret, too, with people from more individualistic cultures usually having more regrets about their personal situation (like achievement or career) and those in collectivist cultures having more regrets about their relationships. And women and men differ some in how they experience regret, with women typically regretting romantic and sexual relationships more than men and men regretting inaction more than action.

Regret is associated with unpleasant emotions, like sadness, disappointment, guilt, and shame. But people also regard it as one of the most beneficial negative emotions, because it can be instructive. For example, if we regret how we behaved the last time we drank too much, we’re less likely to order a third round the next time we’re at the bar. Or, if we regret yelling at our child when angry, we may take a breath the next time we’re upset and respond with compassion.

Our regrets can teach us about ourselves, help us to avoid repeating mistakes, and encourage us to make better decisions in the future. On the other hand, if we use our regrets to beat ourselves up, or if we ignore them completely, they will not lead to growth. The key is finding the right balance, says Leahy.

“Regret doesn’t have to lead directly to self-recrimination,” he writes. But “never feeling regret is not a sign of wisdom or righteousness. It may be a sign you don’t learn from your mistakes.”

Why some people suffer from regret more

Some of us are more prone to regret than others, and Leahy provides multiple questionnaires within his book to help you identify where you fall on that scale. Though there is no way to eliminate regret completely—and the world would be worse if we did—there are factors that increase our chances of experiencing regret in a more negative way and suffering from it, says Leahy. Here are some of those risk factors.

Not tolerating ambivalence. Many life choices have pros and cons, and there are no guarantees about the future. But, if you can’t stand uncertainty, you are bound to avoid making hard choices, leaving you vulnerable to later regrets.

If Only…Finding Freedom from Regret (The Guilford Press, 2022, 246 pages).

Falling prey to biases. We all have cognitive biases, but some influence regret more than others. If you suffer a lot from negativity bias (discounting or not even seeing the positives in your life), black-and-white thinking (thinking things are either all good or all bad), or catastrophizing (thinking that if something goes wrong, you won’t be able to handle it), it’s bound to affect how much you suffer regret.


Worrying about “buyer’s remorse” or how bad we’ll feel in the future. If you’re the kind of person who often anticipates feeling awful for making a choice, it may keep you from deciding on a course of action that could bring you happiness, increasing the potential for regret.

Having too many choices. “Regret is an opportunity emotion—the more opportunity we see, the more likely we are to regret something,” writes Leahy. For example, a college graduate with multiple job offers might regret taking one over another, especially if it doesn’t pan out. Having too many choices increases your potential for making the “wrong” one.

Being a perfectionist. If you expect to have an ideal, happy life all of the time and are not easily satisfied, you will be more prone to regret. “Maximizers” (people who seek out optimal outcomes) tend to feel more regret than “satisficers” (people who are content with good-enough outcomes), unless they can take steps to lessen their maximizing tendencies.

How regret can guide our decisions

“Regret is a possible element of any decision that we make,” writes Leahy. “But the likelihood that you will regret your decisions will depend on how you think about making your decisions and how you cope with living with the result.”


If you’re someone who lets past regrets fester in your mind, Leahy recommends that you fight against irrational thinking and think more realistically about where you are in life. He suggests using approaches from cognitive-behavioral therapy to question your assumptions. Here are some of his tips.

Remember that you don’t know things would have turned out better.If you imagine your life would have been better “if only…,” keep in mind that your assumption is not based on real evidence. Instead of focusing on where you might have been, turn toward the future and remember it can change based on the choices you make now.

Focus on the positive aspects of your current life, to balance out the negative feelings that come with regret. Your negativity bias can keep you preoccupied with what’s wrong rather than what’s right. So, it’s a good idea to practice gratitude for the good in your life—even for the small, simple things.

Don’t forget that sometimes things don’t turn out the way you wanted them to, even with your most thoughtful planning. Life can hand you lemons, but that’s not necessarily your fault. You cannot be omniscient; so, you need to accept that sometimes you will regret your choices. But that doesn’t mean you should criticize yourself endlessly. Better to learn from your mistakes than to punish yourself.

Accept tradeoffs and compromises. Not everything has to turn out just the way you wanted it to. You will stymie your progress if you insist otherwise and make yourself miserable in the process. So, aim to be a satisficer rather than a maximizer.

Overall, Leahy advises that, once you’ve learned whatever lessons regret can teach you, you can let go of unrealistic expectations about what might have been, enjoy your life as it is, and start planning for a better future.

“Look around you at what is in the present moment and hold on to it with a warm embrace,” he writes. “Because your regrets will only keep you from what you have and who you are and trap you in a fictional world that never was—and never could have been.”  

Life isn’t always
(forgive the pun)
CRACKED UP
what it’s suppose to be
but then again.          .         .
when it comes at us in
BITE SIZE
Pieces
We have a better way of
NOT REGRETTING
and savoring all of the goodness out of it
we can.          .          .

Being grateful seems to have a lot of positive effects on our lives. In fact, grateful people may have better sleep, healthier hearts, and fewer aches and pains.   .   .

But what is going on in our bodies when we’re grateful, that might help us be healthier? A couple of recent studies aimed to find out.

In the first study, 61 healthy women between the ages of 35 and 50 were randomly assigned to either a six-week online gratitude activity or a writing activity (as a comparison). Once a week, the gratitude group were given a writing prompt that asked them to write about someone they were grateful for (for example, “Think of someone in your life who you feel like you have never fully or properly thanked for something meaningful or important that they did for you”). The control group wrote about neutral topics (“Think about the longest distance that you walked today”).

Before and after the six weeks, the participants reported on how much they tended to offer support or receive support from other people and provided a blood sample, which was used to check for the presence of inflammatory cytokines (interleukin 6 and tumor necrosis factor-α). Inflammatory cytokines are linked to chronic diseases of aging, like diabetes, atherosclerosis, and even cancer.

After analyzing the data, the researchers found that women assigned to the gratitude condition did engage in more supportive care, which is consistent with the idea that gratitude may inspire people to “pay it forward” and help others. But they didn’t find any significant drop in cytokine levels—meaning, no improved immune function. Naomi Eisenberger, director of the Social and Affective Neuroscience Lab at UCLA and a coauthor on the study, was a little surprised by this.

“You read all the news stories about gratitude and you assume you’re going to see these magical beneficial effects. We didn’t see that,” she said. “The effects were actually harder to see than we thought; they were subtler.”

To get at what might be going on, she and her colleagues looked women’s supportiveness, whether or not they’d participated in the gratitude activity. Here they did see an effect: Women who engaged in more supportive care had lower levels of interleukin 6, suggesting that supportive care (and not gratitude, per se) might improve immune function. Gratitude could affect inflammation, perhaps, but only if it leads to more support for others.

“When people feel grateful, one of the first things they want to do is give back,” she says. “Maybe that doesn’t lead straight to better immune function. But it does lead to more support-giving, and that’s interesting.”

Is gratitude good for our brains?

These findings still left an open question for the researchers: Could experiencing gratitude affect people’s brains in a way that promotes better health? To find out, Eisenberger and her colleagues did a second studylooking at how gratitude affected brain centers associated with support-giving and responding to distress, both of which are tied to better health.

Drawing from the same participants, they used MRI scans to monitor brain activity while the women were shown names of people they felt grateful for and asked to either think about why they felt grateful to the person or to describe the person’s physical appearance. Occasionally, an image of a threatening face was flashed on the screen to startle participants and induce a threat response.

Participants experiencing gratitude didn’t have more neural activity in the caregiving centers of the brain than the control group. But those who’d reported high levels of support-giving had a healthier response to the threatening imagery (decreased amygdala activity) after focusing on gratitude. In other words, for highly supportive people, feeling momentary gratitude seemed to play a role in soothing their stress response—a possible pathway to better health.

“There seems to be something about people engaging in more support-giving over time that makes them less threat-sensitive when primed with gratitude,” says Eisenberger.

This finding mirrors previous work showing that volunteering or giving to others improves health, says Eisenberger. On the other hand, it contrasts with some people’s views that feeling gratitude in and of itself is key to better health, she adds.

“Our study brings up an interesting question of what contributes to better health: Is it the emotion of gratitude, or is it actually engaging in behaviors that help somebody else?” she says. “I don’t know for sure, but maybe it’s tied to behaviors more than to feelings.”

She also mentions that some of the people in her studies reported having trouble feeling grateful. That could be a barrier when it comes to promoting gratitude for improving health.

“These effects didn’t seem to happen for individuals who were higher in things like depression and stress,” she says. “So, I think for those individuals, a gratitude intervention can sometimes backfire.”

Though Eisenberger believes much more research needs to be done to know for sure, her work shows that the effects of gratitude on health may be more nuanced than past research suggests. It doesn’t mean gratitude doesn’t play a role—after all, it seems to encourage more kind and helpful behavior. But it may only play an indirect role.

“If we’re trying to take care of our own health, maybe the best way to do that is helping take care of others,” says Eisenberger. “One way to getting to helping other people could be through experiences of gratitude. But it’s not necessarily the only way to get there, either.”

The STUDIES
are irrefutable
and they mean
absolutely nothing at all
u          n          l          e          s          s
they are utilized
i m p l e m e n t e d
s h a r e d
to
repeat
and
repeat
again
and
again.        .       .
The studies may prove it
but if you want to
make it a
VERB
go and ahead
and
TUDE
your
G R A T I T U D E
to another.             .            .
JUST LIKE A SMILE
if Someone doesn’t have one
GIVE THEM YOURS
.          .          .BE THE REASON
A N O T H E R
IS
GRATEFUL

I’ve always been pretty emotional, easily moved to tears by everything from a sad song, to watching a perfect sunset at the beach or yes, to a predictable romantic comedy. I used to think this was a problem and was embarrassed by my tears—I even contemplated therapy to try to “stop crying so much.” (But realized I really like this PART of me)

But according to Susan Cain’s new book, Bittersweet, this tendency to be easily moved is a strength that helps fuel deeper relationships, creative thinking, and self-understanding. Cain, author of Quiet, a popular book about the power of introversion, has written a poetic, philosophical book—with some science thrown in—about how embracing our darker emotions and yearnings can benefit us, making our lives fuller and more meaningful.

According to Cain, the “bittersweet” feelings involve “a tendency to states of longing, poignancy, and sorrow; an acute awareness of the passing of time; and a curious piercing joy at the beauty of the world.” They involve the recognition that light and darkness, life and death, are forever paired, and that living with that dichotomy front and center can bring us psychological richness.

“Bittersweetness is . . . a quiet force, a way of being, a storied tradition—as dramatically overlooked as it is brimming with human potential,” writes Cain. “To fully inhabit these dualities—the dark as well as the light—is, paradoxically, the only way to transcend them.”  Or in my not-so-apologetically case, embrace them.

The power of bittersweet feelings

As Cain explains, we Americans are often discouraged from feeling darker feelings, like melancholy or grief, in favor of presenting a stoic or smiley face to the public. This is problematic, says Cain, as mixed emotions are important for our mental health and denying them can make us feel inauthentic. Meanwhile, pursuing happiness at all costs can backfire, making us more miserable.

How can tuning into sorrow help? For one thing, it deepens our connections to other people and increases our sense of common humanity. Doing Hospice since 1994 has not only enhanced this in me, but made me down right comfortable with it. Cain points to the movie Inside Out and its celebration of the power of sadness, and to Dacher Keltner’s research on the “compassionate instinct”—the way we’re hardwired to care about others who are in pain. While being happy certainly has social benefits, being in a low mood does, too: It can make us more empathic toward others and draw others to us.

“If we could honor sadness a little more, maybe we could see it—rather than enforced smiles and righteous outrage—as the bridge we need to connect with each other,” writes Cain.

Of course, admitting to pain and sharing vulnerability lets others know we’re human, too, and they help us stay humble in relationships. Cain suggests that we recognize our bittersweet emotions as a yearning for perfect, unconditional love, where we are seen and appreciated just as we are. This longing can never be fulfilled, not even in romantic partnerships. If we hold on to that truth, and simply acknowledge that the longing will always be there, we may blame our romantic partners less and stop holding them to unrealistic standards.

Embracing our bittersweet side can also motivate us toward pursuing difficult goals, she says. Bittersweet feelings create momentum for change and help us find our purpose, because they point us toward inner truths about our lives and what matters most to us. If we lean into our sense of longing and sorrow, says Cain, we can better assess what’s wrong with our current lives and access our deepest passions.

It’s why people who go through traumatic events can sometimes grow from their pain and use it to promote good, like the mother who lost her child to a drunk driver and formed the nonprofit Mothers Against Drunk Driving. It’s also why an expressive writing practice, where people examine their difficult feelings to glean meaning from them, can be so helpful for moving on from adversity. Not shrinking from sorrow can help us grow.

Cain devotes a large part of the book to making the connection between longing or melancholy and the motivation to create or appreciate art. Indeed, some research has shown a tie between experiencing difficult or mixed emotions and creativity. Perhaps that’s why many creative types are famously morose—think Leonard Cohen or Sylvia Plath. They turn their sorrow and longing into something beautiful, moving us all.

Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole (Crown, 2022, 352 pages)

Even at work, argues Cain, people who are given free rein to stop putting on a happy face and, instead, to admit mistakes, share personal sorrows, and express their yearnings are happier, healthier, and more productive than those who try to appear sunny and infallible. Partly, being more authentic about our emotions builds trust and improves work relationships.

“Sharing troubles turn[s] out to be very good not only for mental health, but also for business,” writes Cain.

Another flavor of bittersweet feelings, recognizing impermanence, brings the beauty of the world into stark relief for us, says Cain. Transcendent experiences—feeling a sense of wonder, common humanity, and a part of something greater than yourself—are among the most bittersweet, meaningful experiences in life and can actually lead to higher self-esteem, kind behavior, greater life satisfaction, and less depression.

A bittersweet life?

All of this doesn’t mean we should wish to suffer or wallow in the limitations of our mortal lives, as if that’s a shortcut to creative genius or transcendence. That may just lead to depression. Instead, we need to allowsorrow and pain to coexist with moments of joy or connection and not push it away, says Cain.

“What we like are sad and beautiful things—the bitter together with the sweet,” writes Cain. “We like art forms that express our longing for union, and for a more perfect and beautiful world.”

Of course, there are arguments against giving in to pain and longing, and Cain spends some time uncovering counterarguments to her thesis. For example, she notes that Buddhist philosophy admonishes us to eschew longing, as it interferes with equanimity and accepting our present experience. She also attends a conference of people who think accepting mortality is wrongheaded and that we should be busy finding ways to extend our lives indefinitely, helping take away the bitter pill of death.

While I may quibble some with Cain’s use of research findings—which seemed to focus more on the upsides of negative emotions than the benefits of mixed feelings, downplaying the happiness side of the equation—I do think she makes a good case for not turning away from darker impulses too quickly. As I’ve gotten older, and have worked nearly 30 years in the Death and Dying world of Hospice and Palliative Care, the fact that death is more imminent has definitely made me take stock of my life and added poignancy to the time I have left. It’s why I started a daily walking practice and take a couple of 15 to 30 minute planned TIME OUT’S during the day to meditate and even a block of time to then write on what those walks and meditation have manifested. These activities have deep meaning for me, as they have enhanced my love of nature, mindfulness and language and strengthened my commitment to humanitarian efforts—all important for my well-being.

Though I wouldn’t say Cain’s book changed my thinking, exactly, it did reinforce it. By embracing the bitter with the sweet, I find that my relationships are deeper, my creativity more accessible, my capacity for compassion stronger, and my life richer. Perhaps, reading her book will give you permission to explore your own bittersweet side—and reap the benefits.

Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com

A little dose of
B  I  T  T  E  R  S  W  E  E  T  N  E  S  S
may be much more than the Doctor order.          .          .
IT JUST MIGHT BE WHAT YOUR HEART SCREAMS FOR
WHAT YOUR LIFE ULTIMATELY NEEDS.          .          .

Music is a part of every culture around the world. In fact, the ability to appreciate music is built into our brains, suggesting music has an evolutionary function.

While listening to music just feels good, it also seems to increase social bonding. Some research suggests listening to music makes us more empathic toward other people, encouraging us to resonate with their feelings and care about their welfare. Music may also enhance our ability to consider what a person is thinking and feeling and to take their perspective—another aspect of empathy that can improve relationships.

Many music studies look at the long-term benefits of being a music listener or participating in a music program as a child. But can hearing music help us connect and empathize with someone right in the moment? A new study aimed to find out.

In this study, 60 university students were recruited to watch several 15-second videos in which a person recounts an autobiographical experience. In some cases, people in the video talked about a relatively mundane event, like moving into a new apartment, while other stories contained strong emotional content, like recalling a terrible accident or a loved one’s death.

While students watched these videos, the researchers randomly played either “emotionally neutral” music (such as Hans Zimmer’s “Redacted”) or very sad music (such as Dario Marianelli’s “Farewell”) in the background. After watching each video, the students expressed how they felt, how much compassion they had for the person in the video, and how much they wanted to help that person. They were also tested on their social reasoning skills—how well they understood the perspective of the person in the video. All of these could be signs of empathic connection.

Results showed that people watching the sad videos felt more sadness themselves (showing that they resonated with the other person’s feelings) and more compassion for the other person than those watching the neutral videos—not a big surprise. But these empathic feelings were strengthened by listening to sad music, leading to greater compassion for and willingness to help the person in the video.

“In a sense, there is a synergistic effect between having emotional background music and listening to an emotional narrative,” says lead researcher Brennan McDonald of Technical University Dresden in Germany. “Our social emotions are amenable to emotional enhancement through music.”

The music had no effect, however, on whether or not the students could reason about the other person’s experience and understand, cognitively, what they might be thinking or feeling. McDonald does not know why that would be, since past research seems to contradict that. But, he says, it makes sense that music might impact us more emotionally than intellectually.

“Music can produce powerful, genuine emotions across all of the emotions we can experience—fear, sadness, anger, and joy—and that may clue people into the emotions of the environment in which they find themselves and help them deal with social interactions,” he says. “But our ability to understand the thought process of another doesn’t seem to be as affected by music in the way that our emotions are.”

Why is this important to know? One major reason is that music surrounds us in our daily lives and may affect our feelings for others. Certainly, films capitalize on this, says McDonald, using music as a simple way to augment people’s empathy to care more about the welfare of their characters.

Using music to increase compassion more broadly is McDonald’s greater goal for this research. While music is not the only way to accomplish that—other art forms, like fiction and dancing, have also been shown to increase empathy, for example—music could be a powerful tool. After all, this study involved listening to just 15 seconds of emotional music, and it still made people care more about someone else and want to help them. Perhaps, if people listened to or played music together more, it could help build a more caring society.

“It would be very interesting to take our finding and extend it further, to see if music-making over a long period of time in a social context can enhance our real-world ability to empathize and feel compassion towards others, long-term,” says McDonald. “To test that is the next logical step.”

LISTEN UP
Kind of makes you think,
WHY Just Have your Toe’s Tapping
WHEN YOU CAN HAVE YOUR HEART
BEATING TO ANOTHER RHYTHM.          .          .
TUNE IN

When the pandemic first came to California and lockdowns were instituted, many of Jill’s neighbors set out to help each other. Some called elderly neighbors to be sure they were OK. Others collaborated with local restaurants to create a low-cost food delivery service, feeding people around the city while helping restaurants find a source of income during closures. Still others began a drive to collect masks for essential workers.

These acts of altruism that seemed to be a common GOOD that spread across the World. But what motivated some neighbors to step up to do this, while others didn’t? And is altruism enough when it comes to disaster relief?

Those were the questions at the heart of a new study published in Analyses of Social Issues and Policy.

To better understand how altruism emerged during COVID-19, the researchers analyzed 104 stories of altruism appearing in major newspapers and blogs that were compiled by Ball State University between April and October 2020. They wanted to see if any themes emerged around who the helpers were, why they stepped up, whom they helped, and what kinds of help they offered. The ultimate goal was to paint a picture of how people ally with each other when disaster strikes and how they expand their sense of community.

“We were trying to understand how people come together,” says lead author Selin Tekin. “We wanted to know what kind of strategies people used to support each other and how the wider community can support those most affected.”

While some of the stories she and her team analyzed came from different parts of the world—India, Australia, and England, for example—the majority came from the United States, so the results are somewhat American-centric. But the stories do give a picture of a phenomenon that’s frequently seen when disaster strikes.

“A sense of community often appears in disasters when there are not adequate responses from the authorities or the government, or when there are contradictory messages from the government,” says Tekin. “Community members come together and share whatever resources they have.”

How people stepped up during COVID

Here’s what Tekin and her colleagues found when analyzing the stories.     .     .

Who helped. Many people who helped others during the pandemic belonged to organizations, associations, and faith communities that generally provide help to others, although some were volunteers who spontaneously decided to help. And many were economically or physically advantaged.

It makes sense that organizations set up to provide assistance would do so during the pandemic, and many did, including Catholic Social Services of Alaska, for example. When it became clear homeless people in Anchorage would be at risk of catching COVID in crowded shelters, the organization searched for private places for homeless people to live and helped move them into safer quarters.

Others stepped up once they became aware that certain groups were disproportionately impacted by COVID. Those with greater economic resources gave more generously, while younger people tended to offer their labor. As an example, one Yale college student and his friend put together a group of 1,300 volunteers in 72 hours to deliver groceries and medicine to older New Yorkers and other vulnerable people.

Many people volunteered spontaneously, too, after seeing a pressing need. At one petrochemical plant, 43 employees volunteered to work 12-hour shifts for a month just to produce raw materials needed for face masks and surgical gowns. This kind of volunteer spirit was similar to what I saw with my neighbors—a response that is fairly typical, according to Tekin.

“There are always volunteers who are willing to help their communities,” she says.

Why people stepped up to help. The main reasons people chose to help were that they felt an emerging sense of identity with those most affected by COVID, they wanted to be an ally of disadvantaged groups, and they felt grateful for those risking their own health to help.

Research has shown that those who have a strong sense of “we are in it together” are more likely to help in a crisis than those who don’t, and that was true during COVID, too. In many instances, people expressed feeling a sense of identity with those who were suffering. For example, one artist in Los Angeles sent thousands of paintings of flowers to health care workers in New York City to let them know, “You’re loved by millions of people you’ll never meet. You’re not a stranger to anyone.”

There were also many examples of people wanting to help the disadvantaged. One café owner in Australia withdrew 10,000 Australian dollars from his bank and gave out $100 bills to people standing in line for the social security offices. In India, a group of womenbegan cooking extra food for immigrant workers who were suffering during the lockdown.

In other cases, people wanted to express their thanks to those who were doing essential work during the pandemic. One neighborhood in Miami Beach organized an early-morning surprise for their garbage collectors, lining their street with people holding up signs and putting together gift bags, cards, and presents as a token of their gratitude.

Who was helped. The people most targeted for altruistic help were the elderly, those with health conditions or disabilities, essential workers, working-class people, or marginalized social groups.

For example, many store owners created special store hours when only the elderly or disabled could shop to reduce their risks of getting COVID. One woman created a mask that had a clear, plastic window over the mouth so that people who are deaf or hard of hearing could still use lip reading to understand those around them. When food insecurity rose during COVID, the FarmLink Project stepped up to deliver food that was being left unused at farms, delivering almost 240,000 pounds of food to food banks, and paid wages to farmworkers and other workers affected economically by COVID.

How people were helped. People provided material help, support for psychological or physical well-being, and social-emotional support.

Some people donated money, cooked and distributed food, or ran errands for those who couldn’t leave their house. Others distributed masks to those who had trouble procuring them or offered free counseling services to those suffering emotionally. Still others made calls to lonely, isolated folks or participated in rituals aimed at thanking health care workers on the frontlines (like clapping from their balconies).

Of all of these findings, the latter surprised Tekin most. “I was fascinated by how, even if people can’t give any kind of material support, they show their gratitude; they show that they’re aware of the support that they are receiving,” she says.

She notes many working-class and ethnic minority populations were disproportionately affected by the pandemic and didn’t receive an adequate response from authorities. So, it was heartening to Tekin to see that, when confronted with an outside threat, people can choose to help, whether or not government authorities intervene.

“People share an emergent identity, a human identity,” she says. “Here, we saw people with more financial or material resources willing to share with the disproportionately affected. It wasn’t surprising, exactly, because we’d seen this in previous research. But it’s always interesting.”

Lessons for times of crisis

All in all, these patterns show that in a crisis, people do often step up to help one another. This is good news that can be obscured by news reports of less ideal behavior—like hoarding toilet paper or jumping the line for vaccinations. When there is a sense of common humanity—that we’re in it together—it can encourage more people to feel more moved to help.

“Even though the system is not structured in a way that everybody can receive the same amount of resources under the principles of equity, community members can come together and support each other,” says Tekin. “People just need to be aware of that.”

On the other hand, our altruistic impulses are not enough, says Tekin. As the pandemic drags on, people’s enthusiasm to give tends to wane, even though the need continues. To combat that, it’s incumbent upon community aid groups and government agencies to provide support to those who continue to suffer disproportionately, she says.

“You need change at the systemic level—policies that deal with injustice or that help community aid groups to be more sustainable, because they are usually the people who know their communities best,” says Tekin.

In the meantime, it’s good to see that people are usually capable of expanding their circle of care and stepping up to help.

“Though there is a gap between the advantaged and disadvantaged, there’s also support,” says Tekin. “People don’t always know what to do to help, but they’re willing to do something.”\

NEEDLESS TO SAY
usually means
WE HAVE TO SAY IT CLEARER|
L               O               U                D               E               R

OR  NOT.          .          .
which is the not so subtle difference between
GOOD HAS COME
Or.          .          .
it’s still far off
on it’s way

We often find ourselves nostalgic for days gone by—especially my young adulthood. Thinking about days of once upon a time’s and remember when’s we always still want to be apart and never far apart from.that gives us a bittersweet feeling—a mixture of joy, sadness, and longing.

While we find nostalgia pleasant overall and even inspiring, doctors and psychologists did not always consider it a good thing. Staying “stuck in the past” was often associated with being unable to adjust to new realities, like when soldiers were nostalgic for their faraway homes and experienced loneliness and dread. Not that long ago, some considered nostalgia to be a mental illness, akin to melancholy, which could lead to anxiety, depression, and sleep disorders.

But more recent findings on nostalgia suggest it can be good for us, increasing our well-being, making us feel connected to other people, and giving us a sense of continuity in our lives. And it seems to come on naturally when we need to weather life’s difficulties. Rather than being a problem, nostalgia can help bring happiness and meaning to our lives.

Here are some of the ways nostalgia can benefit us, according to science.

Nostalgia makes us feel socially connected 

Nostalgia about our past often includes recalling important people in our lives—people who cared about us and made us feel like we belonged. Certainly, our own nostalgic musings are centered around times when we were with the people and places we love. So, it’s not too surprising that recalling these special times would make us feel more connected to others, in general.

In one study, researchers found that people who were asked to write about an event from their past that made them feel “sentimental longing for the past” felt loved and supported, and this, in turn, helped buffer them against loneliness. Another study found that when people felt nostalgic about times in their lives when they interacted with members of an “out-group”—for example, teenagers recalling fun times with older adults—they felt less prejudice toward that group.

Nostalgia also seems to help us maintain our relationships. For example, one study found that inducing nostalgia helped people feel more optimistic about relationships in general and more willing to connect with friends. Another study found that when induced to feel nostalgia, people (especially those who find connecting with others easier) felt more able to offer emotional support to the people in their lives.

Nostalgia helps us find meaning in life

A sense of meaning in life involves knowing that your existence matters and that your life has coherence or purpose. It’s something we all strive for in one way or another.

Fortunately, research suggests nostalgia can be an important resource for increasing meaning, by highlighting central moments in our lives and giving us a sense of continuity.

In one study, researchers compared nostalgia to two seemingly related forms of thinking about one’s life: recalling a positive past event or imagining a desired future. Focusing on an event that made them nostalgic led people to feel their lives had more meaning compared to imagining a desirable future. And, compared to both other reflections, feeling nostalgic reduced people’s need to search for meaning in their lives—they already felt life had meaning.

In another study, people either listened to music that brought them back to a particular time or read lyrics to old songs. These nostalgic activities not only made them feel loved and socially connected but also increased their sense of meaning in life. And, when people read an essay that encouraged them to think that life had no meaning—which said, “There are approximately 7 billion people living on this planet. So take a moment to ponder the following question: In the grand scheme of things, how significant are you?”—they naturally turned to feelings of nostalgia for relief from that sense of meaninglessness.

These findings and others suggest that nostalgia not only heightens your sense of meaning in life, but can act as a buffer when you experience a loss of meaning. And it may help you move forward in life, too. As one study found, nostalgia can increase your motivation to pursue important life goals, because it increases meaning—not just because it puts you in a better mood.

Nostalgia can make us happier

Though it does seem to do just that—to boost our mood. Even though nostalgia is by definition a blend of positive and negative emotion, the positive tends to outweigh the negative, meaning we feel happier overall.

In one very recent study, 176 university students were randomly assigned to a six-week nostalgia program where they were asked weekly to write about a past event that brought on “a sentimental longing for the past” (while a control group wrote about past events that were ordinary). Afterward, they reported on their levels of positive and negative emotions and how much the writing provided a sense of social connection, meaning, or connection to their past self. At different points in time, they also reported on their life satisfaction, feelings of vitality, and well-being.

A lot of the benefits on happiness may be connected to nostalgia’s effects on social connection and meaning. But it could also be that nostalgia helps us see ourselves in a truer, more authentic light.

Nostalgia puts us in touch with our authentic selves

When thinking nostalgically about our past, we are the prime protagonists in our own life stories. Perhaps because of this, nostalgia helps us to see our lives as continuous and coherent, providing us with a sense of authenticity.

In one study, when primed to feel nostalgic by writing about a time in their past, people saw their past self as an authentic representation of themselves. This, in turn, reduced their focus on meeting the expectations of others versus following their own, intrinsic expectations of themselves. In other words, it helped them be their authentic selves.

The researchers also studied how threats to one’s sense of self might make people engage in more nostalgia. Half of the participants read this text: “Many people feel that they have two sides to themselves. One side is the person that they show to other people; the other side is their true self—that is, the person who they truly are deep down.” Then, they wrote about times in their lives when they’d found it hard to reveal their real selves to others. The other half of the participants wrote about their daily routines and when those routines were disrupted. Then, both groups reported on their positive and negative emotions, as well as feelings of nostalgia.

Findings showed that people who focused on threats to their self-concept experienced more negative emotions, and in turn felt more nostalgic. This suggests that nostalgia helps put us in touch with our “real selves” and protects us against threats to our authenticity.

Perhaps for this reason, engaging in nostalgia can lead to personal growth. At least one study found that feeling nostalgia made people feel more positively about themselves, which, in turn, made them more open to experiencing new things, expanding their horizons, and being curious—all signs of psychological health.

Nostalgia may help people who feel disillusioned or depressed

Perhaps because of these potential benefits, people tend to engage in nostalgia when they are feeling down, lonely, or disillusioned. Many studies have found that nostalgia seems to protect people from negative mind states, bringing about a kind of emotional homeostasis.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that nostalgia is always good or can’t have a downside. If nostalgia makes us spend too much time thinking about our past, it may prevent us from recognizing the joy in our lives right here and now. And, since we tend to engage in nostalgia when negative things occur, it could become an avoidance strategy that keeps us from dealing with present problems in more effective ways.

Encouraging groups of people to feel nostalgic could also have negative consequences. For example, one study found that nostalgia made people more likely to believe political claims, regardless of their veracity. Inducing nostalgia could be an advertising ploy used to affect consumer behavior, which could lead to poor choices, too.

Still, chances are that nostalgia is more a blessing than a curse, and a winning strategy for feeling better about ourselves. It can increase our connection to others, our sense of meaning in our lives, our authenticity, and our happiness. So, why not tune into nostalgia now and then? It may just help you meet the challenges of the moment.

So the next time you’re tempted to go down
MEMORY LANE
settle in
buckle up
enjoy the ride
and make sure
someone’s sitting in the
passenger seat
someone
to make some more
m e m o r i e s
because our greatest memories
just might be the ones
we’ve yet to create
which is always the hope
of any day
or holiday
looming before us.          .          .
E  N  J  O  Y