In a nother study, researchers found that 61-92% of their samples reported experiencing joyful sadness while listening to sad music, while 40-56% of participants reported experiencing distressing feelings like grief, loss, and hatred. The most meaningful music is often related to memory which, as you know, commonly comes in the form of bittersweet nostalgia after a loss. Listening to sad music, in particular, has been linked with a number of positive experiences like nostalgia, imagination, empathy, peacefulness, tenderness, transcendence, and wonder.įor participants living in Western cultures, nostalgia has been cited as the most common experience, which makes total sense. Depending on the situation, sadness can actually be linked with pleasant experiences. Well, I suppose, but only if you look at sadness as a purely and objectively negative experience isn't. Sadness, in general, is actually far more complex. So it's a common coping mechanism, but is it effective? It seems like listening to sad songs when you're sad would only make you sadder. For example, a 2014 study found that people choose to listen to sad music and like it more when they are emotionally distressed. The benefit of sad music is also reflected in research. I just had a look around at the shared playlists on Spotify and found – " Sad Love Songs," "Sad Station," "Sad Songs for Crying Yourself to Sleep" – so anecdotally - there are many of us. I know I'm not the only one who loves a good music-fueled cry. Fortunately, I've become far more proficient at coping with hardship than I was at the age of 17 (okay, okay - most of the time), but the one thing that's never changed is that when I feel down, I always go back to my sad mix tapes and playlists. Since my first superficial heartbreak, I've unfortunately learned how much deeper the pain of true loss cuts. You might have thought that as I moved into my 20s, the songs would start to feel a little dated, perhaps a bit out of context, but no, they always did the trick. This CD stayed with me through several subsequent heartbreaks until it grew too smudged and scratched to play even a single song all the way through. Anyway, we headed up to my attic, to my clunky family PC, and burned one of the greatest mixes of all time - ' Eleanor and Jamie's Sad Mix.' I was good with titles even then. Now, CDs aren't so far in our past that I have to explain them to anyone, do I? Google it if you must, and while you're at it, look up audio cassette tapes, which are, in my opinion, the most classic break-up mix medium. I might have stayed in that room forever (or at least until the weekend) had one of my closest friends not shown up with just the thing for a broken heart - blank CDs. I made it my prerogative to fully experience the anguish of my first heartbreak by locking myself in my room, pouring over old photos, and writing tear-soaked love poems. When my first serious boyfriend broke up with me the summer after I graduated high school, I was thoroughly and completely devastated.
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