Everyone has experienced this at least once:
You hear a specific song, you see a place you haven't seen for ages, or you might even smell a perfume that reminded you of something of the past.
You can literally feel the chemicals in your brain working on high gears. A feeling of nostalgia arises, and it feels very unique.
If you are someone who is listening to music regularly, especially if you have favorite songs that you repeatedly listen to, then this will sound very familiar to you.
A random day, a different year, you hear that song and you remember the exact season, your emotional state, your emotional response from back than, and you're just in awe of the feeling of nostalgia with all the details in the memory.
Try it yourself:
Read a book, or work out, or play a video game, or just live your normal life (be involved in something, have something going on) WHILE listening to the same music constantly.
The more distinctive the event is that you experienced while exposing your senses (sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch) repeatedly to the same stimulus.
There exists a term for this process in NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming), it's called anchoring. Before hearing of this term, for me it used to be the process of creating nostalgia, because that is what it basically is.
You can read deeper into this here: http://www.nlpu.com/Articles/artic28.htm
Image credit: Shutterstock
Why is this useful to you?
An emotion is the most powerful tool to take action easily.
Emotions pull you into action, you don't need to use willpower.
Relive pleasant events of the past.
Reinforce current events by intensifying the anchor.
Sometimes we just like to think back and immerse ourselves in the emotion of the past, even if it might be sad to realize that this event won't return.
Anchor accomplishments. Use them to fuel you.
Treat yourself with a shot of an emotional cocktail.
Some people are prone to anchor how they feel in specific seasons automatically. Or maybe that is just me. For me autumn and winter are the most spectacular seasons in terms of emotional rides. I like to reinforce my mood on a rainy or old cold day with music that fits the theme.
And next year I will have a comeback by listening to the very same music, and I'll remember every awesome event at that time, and the feeling of it.
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