Heart warming

Remember that day you first went to school? What about the moment you walked into your first full-time job? Or how could you forget that moment when you first laid eyes on the love of your life? Lovely memories but have you noticed anything while you were reflecting on those golden life moments? If new research can be trusted, just indulging in that spot of nostalgia has probably increased your body temperature.

Nostalgia is by definition a longing for the past and you only “long” for pleasant events. Research has shown that engaging in nostalgia has soothing psychological effects but what was examined in the latest research was whether there might be physiological effects as well. To establish this the new research actually involved five separate studies including subjects from countries as diverse as China and the Netherlands.

In study number one, subjects kept a journal in which they recorded nostalgic feeling and the results showed that people tended to feel nostalgic on colder days. Were people using nostalgia to warm themselves against the cold? In study two, people were put in either a room at 20 degrees Celsius, 24 degrees Celsius or 28 degrees Celsius. In the cool room people were much more likely to have nostalgic thoughts than in the other two rooms.

In study number three, people said that music that made them feel nostalgic also made them feel physically warmer. The fourth experiment involved people being put in a cool room and then being asked to recall either a nostalgic event or just an ordinary event from their past. When the subjects were asked to estimate the temperature in the room those who recalled the nostalgic moment estimated the temperature to be higher than those who recalled “ordinary” events.

In study number five, people again had to recall either nostalgic or ordinary events and then plunge their hand into a bucket of iced water for as long as they could. Those who recalled nostalgic memories were able to keep their hand in the water for much longer, suggesting that they must have an added inner warmth.

You might not be needing it in a southern hemisphere summer right now, but next time you are feeling a bit chilly just take a moment to think back on some treasured memories because nostalgia really does warm the cockles of your heart.