Why Does Sadness Last Longer Than Other Emotions?

Why does sadness last longer than other emotions? Many of us have had this feeling. When it appears, it is installed in the home of our mind as the worst of the companions. It embraces us with an ashen veil that dulls everything with its gray tones, inviting us to hide for days or weeks in the shell of our introspection.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry used to say that sadness is still a vibration and that when it sounds we remember that we are alive. It may be so. Few emotions may be such an obvious example of what existence is often like: having to deal with more than one disappointment, facing losses, dealing with regrets and the echo of those things that will never come back.

Also, there is something that we certainly know. It is not easy to disinfect it, run away from it or try to put it aside like someone who keeps a gift that he does not like in a drawer. Sadness lasts much longer than emotions such as surprise, joy, boredom, disgust, or even anger. However, the fact that this is so has a purpose. We analyze it.

Reasons why sadness lasts longer than other emotions

Sadness, like many emotions, gets a bad rap. We do not know what to do with it, when we experience it we want to get rid of its presence as if it were the worst of enemies. Moreover, often, if someone perceives our discouragement and dejected expression, they do not hesitate to say the much-used and misguided expression of “cheer up, it’s not worth being like that, life is two days.”

Among our collective ideology, we continue to link this emotion to weakness and perhaps that is why we continue to handle this state in such a misguided way. Thus, something that Paul Ekman, a pioneering psychologist in the study of emotions, points out to us is that our psychological universe would be much better if we understood these psychophysiological states much more.

To begin with, something that he himself explains to us in books like Knowing Our Emotions , written with Daniel Goleman, is that sadness lasts longer than other emotions due to a very specific fact: it is made up of many other emotions. That is, we are facing an emotion that never comes alone. It is like the stopper of a bottle, when we uncork it we discover that rage, anger and even fear live inside it.

Unraveling it, “knowing what it is made of” would help us understand it much better to overcome it. However, there are more factors that explain why this emotional state is more persistent.

Sadness is proportional to the event that causes it and the way we interpret it

You have been in a relationship for five years for which you have given everything. You have made an effort to make things work, however, in the end you assume it. It is best to leave that person. After the breakup and after so long fighting for that love, what you feel is now infinite sadness. And that state goes with you for months or even years.

Now, another person in the same circumstances, interprets the decision to break up as a relief. This little example shows us something very simple. Sadness lasts longer than other emotions because the triggers are more important. Because they are linked to events that can be traumatic. However, everything also depends on the way in which that experience is interpreted.

What’s more, in addition to how we filter that fact, there are also our coping skills. There are people who have a more resilient approach to dealing with adversity. Others, on the other hand, fall into states of defenselessness that make this malaise more lasting.

The danger of rumination: when thoughts feed sadness

The University of Leuven conducted a study to dig a little deeper into the understanding of emotions. They were interested in knowing how long psychophysiological realities such as joy, fear, shame last on average … Well, something that was evident is that happiness is not as long a state as we think.

• Emotions such as fear, surprise, boredom or disgust were very brief. However, among the entire sample analyzed there was a state that was always perceived as lasting: sadness.
• The researchers wanted to understand what motivated that evidence. What makes sadness settle in our lives for weeks or months? The answer is in our thought patterns.
• Rumination and continually thinking about the stimulus that has triggered this state make it difficult to disappear.

The fact of not stopping to think about that event that has caused our disappointment, loss or suffering not only makes the sadness more enduring. In addition, it intensifies it.

There is also another fact. Sometimes we can experience this emotion without a specific motivator. However, our thinking continues to be that boiler that fuels discouragement, that raises the temperature of suffering and negativity.

Why does sadness last longer than other emotions? The resistance

One of the reasons sadness lasts longer than other emotions is in our resistance. Refusing to accept the felt emotion makes it difficult to manage.

Health is also validating each emotion, understanding that in abnormal situations complicated emotions are normal. Understanding them, accepting them and knowing how to handle them, gives us balance and allows us to go better through the days of calm and adversity.

Therefore, it is time to reformulate many of those schemes that have been instilled in us. Strong is not the one who supports the most and who can with everything. Brave is the one who allows himself to fall to compose himself, cry to be relieved, take refuge in his introspection to make better decisions.

Resisting, appearing strength and pretending life does not hurt us, makes the wound bigger and the sadness more extensive and lasting. As Antonio Damasio points out, people are not rational beings who get emotional, we are emotional creatures who reason. Being skilled in emotional awareness enables us to have a more satisfied and healthy life.