Is There Such Thing As A Healthy Dose Of Nostalgia?

One of the things I’ve leaned into this year has been a healthy dose of nostalgia. ✨ But, is that a real thing?

As much as I love shiny new toys, there’s nothing like holding a piece of your childhood. It’s like hearing an old song and remembering all of the words. ⚡️

It’s nice to have something that never changes; I increasingly find myself reaching for something familiar, something pure, something grounding me in this crazy year on Earth. 🌎 

I started to question if this was *actually* a “healthy dose” of said nostalgia though… I’ve been dealing with a lot of loss this year. Lost family, lost relationships, lost time, lost certainty, and most recently – I lost one of my dogs. 😢

Being increasingly more self-aware, I was curious. Is this mission for nostalgia just a distraction? A form of unhealthy self-sabotage? Before I beat myself up for playing some old-school Pokémon Yellow Version on this awesome GameBoy Color, I decided to look up why I reached for it in the first place.

💡 Clay Routledge, Social Psychologist and Associate Professor of Psychology at North Dakota State University, says nostalgia “increases positive mood, self-esteem, feelings of social connectedness, optimism about the future, and perceptions of meaning in life. … Nostalgia also reduces existential fears about death.”

⚡️I think it’s okay to distract ourselves for a while with something that has always been there for us. Add it to your self-care routine. Just, don’t forget to brush your teeth and get out of bed in the morning! ✌️