Why sadness lingers

Some things last when you don’t want them too and others pass too quickly. An evening at any live play starring Hugo Weaving always goes too fast while most amateur comedians would do well to leave the stage after saying “Hello, I’m Tristan and it’s really great to be here”. Just so does sadness seem to linger where you may wish it to depart but as a new study has highlighted, there is a good reason why sadness sticks around where other emotions make a hasty retreat.

The study involved subjects being asked to recall recent emotional episodes and report their duration. You will have spotted at this point that it is not the most sophisticated study design but the findings were interesting and the discussion of them even moreso.

The results showed that there were significant differences in how long various emotions lasted. It was found that sadness lasted longer than any other emotion, much longer than shame, surprise, fear, disgust, boredom, irritation, or relief. Additionally, some emotions that were similar were differentiated by their duration such as guilt lasting longer than shame and anxiety stays around more than fear.

Most interesting was the researcher’s musing on why sadness would linger longer than other emotions. They discovered in their study that emotions that last a shorter time are those that are caused by events that have a low importance attached to them. Long-lasting emotions like sadness however, tend to be caused by events that have strong implications for a person’s major concerns in life.

Sadness lasts then, because it matters, or the things that generate it matter. If you’ve read this column enough too you will realise that being sad doesn’t mean you can’t be happy. If you have cultivated a happy and flourishing disposition, then you can still feel legitimate sadness in response to a life event without altering that inner happiness. This study tells us that sadness will linger while you make sense of what has happened so don’t rush it, but don’t wallow either, and don’t think that you have become your sadness. A whole range of emotions can wash through you but the “you” that you create remains when the tide of emotions has retreated, so make the inner you a happy one.