The Longest Lasting Emotion and 4 Proven Ways to Loosen its Grip

Some emotions burst onto the scene and disappear just as quickly. Others stay for longer, as though there’s no place else for them to be.

In a recent study, researchers looked at 27 different emotions and gained fascinating insight into the average amount of time each emotion tends to stay.

Sadness is the longest lasting of all emotions taking on average 120 hours to pass. 

Hatred is the second most enduring emotion followed by joy which lasts an average of 35 hours.

Guilt lingers longer than the hot burn of shame; and fear tends to pass fairly quickly compared to anxiety which generally lasts much longer.

The stay-around power of sadness is likely due to its tendency to be associated with events that have a major long-term impact on people’s lives, such as bereavement.

The study, published in the journal Motivation and Emotion, found the reason some emotions stay around for longer than others is because of rumination – the tendency to replay or think about negative things over and over.

As explained by researcher Saskia Lavrijsen, ‘Rumination is the central determinant of why some emotions last longer than others.’

How to stop thinking the same thoughts over and over and…

Rumination is a proven risk factor for depression so seriously … ya’ gotta stop it. It’s not easy – I know – but here are four proven ways to stop rumination running away with your head.

  1. Exercise

    Physical activity interrupts negative thinking and reframes the way you look at things. This has been proven over and over and then a bit more.

  2. Mindfulness

    Bring yourself back to the moment (as opposed to thinking about the past or the future) by paying attention to what you hear, feel, smell, see and taste. This is about being present in the now. It’s important because it’s the only place we have any power.

  3. Worst case scenario

    This may sound counter-intuitive but stay with me … Think about the worst case scenario and ask yourself if you can handle it. This takes the steam out of the original thought that’s made itself at home in your head. Humans are resilient creatures and it’s likely that although the worst case scenario won’t have you pulling your ‘bring it on then,’ face, whatever it is you’ll be able to handle it. 

  4. Pencil in a worry break.

    Kinda like a date, but nowhere near the fun. Set aside a period of time each day, say 20 minutes, where you can go hard with your worrying. Worry it up like crazy. Worry about everything that’s been hassling you for attention. Then, at the end of your scheduled break – stop. When something starts clanging around the inside of your skull, remind yourself that you’ve made time later to deal with whatever it it. This works. Just try it.

What does it mean for relationships?

This finding gives fuel to the importance of being emotionally responsible with those we love (not to be confused with being emotionally responsible for them).

There’s a lot said around the idea that nobody can ‘make you sad/angry/ashamed …’, and for the most part, this is true. However in terms of intimate relationships, it’s something that has always sat uneasy with me. Let me tell you why.

Part of being intimate with another person involves dropping the walls, clearing the way for them to be closer to you than you would allow anyone else. This is intimacy – honest, generous, open, vulnerable, sometimes messy and when it’s at its best, phenomenal. 

When this is handled with love and respect, the relationship will be tight, strong and safe. When it’s not, it can be excruciating, perhaps bland, maybe lonely.

Knowing what we know now about the length of time sadness takes to pass, it’s clear how regular fighting, disrespect, nastiness or  indifference from one towards the other can kill a relationship and dampen a person. In stingy or hurtful relationships sadness will build on sadness. It’s why it’s critical to choose wisely who we love and who we open ourselves up to – or for how long we stay open to them.

Emotions are there for a reason … So listen.

All emotions serve a purpose. Sadness, for example, might alert us to a situation that requires change. It also has a protective function, a type of ‘time-out’ to allow for healing, reflection, or adjustment to new or overwhelming circumstances. Sadness signals to others that support might be needed, particularly as ‘Hey. I need you,’ isn’t something that tends to always flow easily from us humans.

Too much of anything though is never a good thing. Being mindful of an emotion becoming too consuming is the best fight against it taking you somewhere – like depression or illness – that’s harder to come back from.

One Comment

Matthew D

Thank you. This was well stated and helpful. Biggest compliment I can give.

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So ready to get started with ‘Hey Little Warrior’ in Melbourne. This is my fourth time this year presenting this workshop in Melbourne and we sell out every time.

So what do we do here?! We dive into how to support young children with anxiety. It’s my favourite thing to talk about. I love it. Even more than whether or not I want dessert. We talk about new ways to work with anxiety in littles so they can feel braver and bigger in the presence of it. This workshop is loaded with practical strategies. I love presenting this workshop.

(And yes - always yes to dessert. As if I would ever skip the most important meal of the day. Pffftt.)

@compass_australia
They’re often called sensory preferences, but they’re sensory needs.

In our adult worlds we can move our bodies and ourselves to seek regulation. If we don’t like noise we’re less likely to be DJs for example. If we don’t love heights we’re less likely to be pilots or skydivers. If we feel overwhelmed, we can step outside, go into an office, go to the bathroom, or pop on headphones for a break. If we need to move, we can stand, walk to get a tea. At school, this is so much harder.

When bodies don’t feel safe, there will be anxiety. This will potentially drive fight (anger, tantrums), flight (avoidance, running away, movement), or shutdown (in quiet distress and can’t learn). 

These are physiological issues NOT behavioural ones.

Whenever we can, we need to support physiological safety by accommodating sensory needs AND support brave behaviour. What’s tricky is disentangling anxiety driven by unmet sensory needs, from anxiety driven by brave behaviour.

The way through is to support their physiological needs, then move them towards brave behaviour.

Schools want to support this. They want all kids to be happy and the best they can be, but there will be a limit on their capacity to support this - not because they don’t want to, but because of a scarcity of resources.

There will often be many children with different physiological needs. Outside school there is nowhere else that has to accommodate so many individual needs, because as adults we won’t be drawn to environments that don’t feel okay. In contrast, school requires all kids to attend and stay regulated in the one environment.

For now, we don’t have a lot of options. Yes there are schools outside mainstream, and yes there is home school, but these options aren’t available to everyone.

So, until mainstream schools are supported with the resources (staff, spaces, small classes, less demand on curriculum … and the list goes on), what can we do?

- Help school with specific ways to support your child’s physiology while being mindful that teachers are also attending to the needs of 25+ other nervous systems. But be specific.
- Limit the list. Make this a ‘bare minimum needs’ list, not a ‘preferences’ one.♥️
Brave often doesn’t feel like ‘brave’. Most often, it feels like anxiety. If there is something brave, important, new, hard, there will always be anxiety right behind it. It’s the feeling of anxiety that makes it something brave - and brave is different for everyone.♥️

#anxietyawareness #childanxiety #anxietysupport #anxietyinkids #parent #positiveparenting
Recently I chatted with Sharon from the ADHD Families Podcast. I loved this chat. We took a dive into anxiety and ADHD, including anxiety at school and some strategies for schools and parents to support kiddos with anxiety and ADHD. Listen to the full episode 
here https://www.thefunctionalfamily.com/podcasts/adhd-families-podcast

thefunctionalfamily
Remember the power of ‘AND’. 

As long as they are actually safe:

They can feel anxious AND do brave.

They can feel like they aren’t ready for brave, AND be ready brave.

They can wish to avoid AND they can stay (or not be taken home).

They can be angry, anxious, and push us away AND we can look after them through the feelings without avoiding the brave/ new, hard/ important. 

We can wish for their anxiety, anger, sadness to be gone AND we can be with them without needing them to be different.

We can believe them (that they are anxious, scared, angry) AND believe in them (that they are capable).

When we hold their anxiety AND their capacity for brave, in equal measure and with compassion, we can show them that their anxiety doesn’t cancel their brave.♥️

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