Nostalgia!

April 2nd, 2022| Topic: RaMbLeS | 2

Are you suffering from general aches and pains? Stressed? Grieved?

There is a solution to all your woes: get nostalgic!

Chinese scientists say that taking a break to stroll down memory lane really does relieve those pangs, pins, and pinches. So say they, from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in “Thalamocortical Mechanisms for Nostalgia-Induced Analgesia,” published recently in The Journal of Neuroscience.

Apparently what happens is that feeling nostalgic makes you overcome low levels of pain by reducing brain activity.

Said one of the authors, Professor Huajian Cai:

As a predominantly positive emotion, nostalgia serves various adaptive functions, including a recently revealed analgesic effect. Human participants’ behavior results showed that the nostalgia paradigm significantly reduced participants’ perception of pain, particularly at low pain intensities.”

It was the scholar, Johannes Hofer who, in 1688, described “nostalgia” (nosos, for native land; algos, for suffering, grief, or pain) as “the sad mood originating from the desire for the return to one’s native land.” Our authors define it this way:

Nostalgia, a sentimental longing for one’s past, is a self-conscious, bittersweet, but predominantly positive social emotion. It is a complicated emotion involving self, autobiographical memory, and reward.”

And in their experiments, participants were shown a series of 26 nostalgic images while hooked up to an fMRI machine to measure their brain activity. The images featured scenes and items from a so-called “average childhood,” like popular cartoon TV shows, schoolyard games, or vintage candy. At the same time, participants were exposed to varying levels of pain using a small heat generator on their right forearm, about 10 centimeters above the wrist. (A control group was exposed to a different series of images showing scenes and items from modern life, which did not elicit feelings of nostalgia.)

What the researchers found was that activity in one part of the brain’s thalamus during the nostalgia stage kinda prevented another part of the thalamus from overworking, thus producing an analgesic effect.

Added Cai:

The current study results reveal that the thalamus, as a critical brain region for pain modulation, is also related to the analgesic effect associated with nostalgia. These findings demonstrate the analgesic effect of nostalgia and, more importantly, shed light on its neural mechanism.”

Time to chuck those opiates and open your photo album instead!

Better yet, remember God and what he has done for you in the past.

My God, within me my soul is depressed;
therefore I remember You. …
By day Yahweh will command His lovingkindness;
and by night His song will be with me. …
Why are you depressed, my soul,
and why are you disturbed within me?
Wait on God, for I shall again praise Him—
the deliverance of my face, and my God.
Psalm 42:6, 8, 11

When I remember You on my bed,
in the night watches I meditate on You.
For You have been a help to me,
and in the shadow of Your wings I shout with joy.
My soul cleaves unto You;
Your right hand holds me.
Psalm 63:6–8

I will remember the deeds of Yah;
yes, I will remember Your wonders of old.
I will meditate on all Your doing,
and about Your actions I will be concerned. …
You are the God who works wonders …
You have redeemed with Your arm Your people.
Psalm 77:11–12, 14–15

Seek Yahweh and His strength;
look to His face continually.
Remember His wonders which He has done,
His portents and the judgments of His mouth ….
He is Yahweh our God.
Psalm 105:4–7

Best.analgesic.ever!

SOURCE:
The Journal of Neuroscience; StudyFinds