Sweeter memories over time

When remembering important events in your life, such as breaking up or getting married, we often reduce negative emotions like anxiety, anger, and remember more positive emotions.

Photo: exploratorium " This result shows that each healthy individual will automatically build a positive storytelling self to bring optimistic tone to the most important things in his life ", the author Research Michael Conway and Wendy-Jo Wood at Concordia University, Canada, said.

The results are also meaningful to the mental health of each individual. "Mental health is maintained or improved by everyone's efforts to make every experience in life become meaningful," Conway said.

" People try to see what is positive in each of life's difficulties and proceed to lower it to the extent that negatives can happen in the past, " he explained.

In her research, Conway and Wood investigated emotional memories of the past important events of 279 college students. They find that when participants think about negative events, such as conflicts with their boss, their departure or sexual violence, they all say that they feel less negative emotions right now. , like being angry or scornful, while feeling happier and proud than when the event happened

In addition, when students recall positive events, such as dating, getting married, achieving a personal goal, they say that they still feel happy as early as with strong feelings of love and pride. strong. However, negative emotions such as anger, confusion, and guilt are all reduced.

Conway said: " Everyone experiences strong emotions in stressful situations and they need to recognize those events in order to maintain a positive sense of self and the world ."

MT