This week’s Better You, Backed by Science is about nostalgia.
Have you ever heard an old song and suddenly found yourself transported back to another time in your life?
I get that regularly and hadn’t really thought that much about it until I came across the research that this week’s post is based on.
Maybe it reminds you of a holiday, a friendship, or a time when you were younger. For a few moments, you’re totally there again. You remember the people, the places, perhaps even how you felt.
It’s a feeling we call nostalgia.
The Science of Nostalgia
We mostly think of nostalgia as a longing to return to the past. And sometimes it is.
But fascinating new research suggests it may do something else. It might help us recognise just how rich our lives have already been.
In a study published in June this year, researchers investigated the relationship between nostalgia and something psychologists call psychological richness.
Psychological richness is a relatively new way of understanding what makes a good life. Usually we think of a good life in terms of two things.
1) Happiness – feeling good and being satisfied with life.
2) Meaning – having a sense of purpose and feeling that our lives matter.
But psychological richness adds a third dimension. It’s about having a life filled with varied, interesting and perspective-changing experiences.
And here’s where nostalgia comes in. In two experiments involving more than 1,600 participants, researchers asked people to reflect on either a nostalgic experience or an ordinary event from their past.
They then measured how psychologically rich people perceived their lives to be.
And what they found was that people who reflected on nostalgic memories reported a greater sense of psychological richness. And importantly, this effect wasn’t simply explained by nostalgia making them happier or giving them a greater sense of meaning. It seemed to contribute something additional.
The researchers suggested that nostalgic memories may remind us of distinctive experiences we’ve had, helping us appreciate the variety and richness of our lives.
Deliberately Look Back
I love this finding, because we often evaluate our lives by looking forward: What haven’t I achieved yet? Where haven’t I been? What experiences am I still missing?
But deliberately looking back gives us another perspective: What have I already experienced? Who have I loved? What have I learned? What moments have shaped me? What has made me laugh?
Even the experiences that changed how we see the world.
And maybe that’s one of the gifts of nostalgia. It reminds us that our lives aren’t just made up of what’s happening now or what we hope will happen next.
They’re also made up of everything we’ve experienced along the way that’s made us who we are.
So the moral of the story is that maybe we shouldn’t always measure our lives according to the pursuit of our goals and what we haven’t done yet.
Maybe we should also remember how much we’ve already lived.
Try This
Here’s something to try this week.
Think back to a time in your life that brings a warm feeling of nostalgia.
Maybe a favourite holiday, a particular Christmas, a friendship, or a moment you shared with someone.
You might even put on some music from that time.
Allow yourself to remember because it was part of your life.
Reflect on what made it special, what you experienced, and perhaps how it shaped you.
You might find yourself feeling grateful for things you’d almost forgotten.
References
The 2026 nostalgia and psychological richness study. Link.
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