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Learn to manage that feeling of sadness, which at the same time brings back good memories of the past. The key is to live in the here and now, according to psychologists.
Having the feeling that you are missing something that you once had is a good way to define melancholy. As the psychologist Leticia Braga Ed.D. explain, melancholy is an emotion associated with sadness and, although many times those memories are good, it is something that you can no longer recover.
On the one hand, you feel joy when remembering the past, but on the other, you suffer for what you have lost. This emotion becomes very intense because it makes you see that you were probably happier before. That’s why it affects you so much. But you can fight it.
Why Melancholy Is Understood As a Negative Emotion
This feeling is accompanied by reluctance, lack of energy , longing for the past, exhaustion, tiredness and difficulty concentrating on the present, describes the European Institute of Positive Psychology.
Feeling this emotion is totally normal. As with sadness , joy or fear, melancholy is a sensation that everyone has felt at some point in their life and all emotions are necessary in their right measure, both positive and negative. they say from the European Institute of Positive Psychology.
Psychologists say that when they last much longer and their symptoms interfere with your daily life, that is when you should start to worry. Because behind a lasting melancholy ” depression can appear ,” they say.
According to the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, once melancholy settles permanently in an individual, it becomes a pathology and this prevents the normal development of daily activities, making life difficult on a social, work and productive level.
These symptoms usually appear mainly in older people and affect men and women equally, explains the Institute of Positive Psychology.
Symptoms of prolonged melancholy
Having reached the extreme of a melancholic depression , it is important to take measures to recover from this state as soon as possible. As explained by Oxford Journal of Psychology. That is why we recur to Positive Psychology field of thought where explains us that some symptoms of this state are as follows:
- The loss of pleasure: This is the inability to enjoy all aspects of your life. Whether they are from the most basic things like eating, to demotivation from everything that previously made you happy.
- A clearly sad mood: This symptom refers to a very deep sadness that lasts over time.
- Sleeping problems: According to the European Institute of Positive Psychology, 80% of patients with this type of depression complain of a deterioration in both the quality and quantity of their sleep.
- Feeling of excessive guilt.
How To Stop Melancholy, That is Something Already Of The Past
To stop melancholy and free yourself from that feeling of sadness, the Cambridge Health Alliance psychology department recommends focusing on the present and stopping clinging to the past.
To do this, it is necessary to start by evaluating the small steps you can take to improve your current situation in the different areas in which you are not satisfied.
It is also necessary to be as objective as possible , both with the present and the past, and remember that we tend to idealize past times. And finally, it is also good to practice pleasant activities that give you well-being.
Leticia Braga, Ed.D
Doctor in Human Development and Psychology
About The Author
