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What Is the Function of Sadness?

Sadness can be a draining, painful experience. It is most often associated with loss. This loss can be caused when you see a loved one pass away, when you lose an object that means something to you or when you leave a place that you once called home. These feelings get easier with time, but during the sadness process your brain performs a number of functions that help you experience your sadness in a fulfilling way.

  1. Increases Memory Encoding

    • During periods of sadness, your brain heightens your memory abilities. Primarily, this includes your memory recall abilities and feelings of efficacy. This results in your having an increased ability to remember instances in your life, specifically relating to the loss that caused your sadness. For instance, if you just lost a loved one, your brain increases its ability to recall times that you spent with that person, things that you did together and things that the person once told you. This increased recall, combined with the increased feelings of efficacy, helps you personalize a loss and feel the strong connection to the person or thing that you are losing.

    Creates a Yearning

    • Your brain uses your increased personalization with your loss to create a long-term feeling of yearning in you. This yearning begins with your increased recall of your experiences with the person or thing that you lost. The yearning itself is your desire to be reunited with your loss. The yearning remains in your mind long after the feeling of sadness, because the emotional experience of feeling sad left the yearning feeling as a memory marker within your mind. Later, you can recollect this feeling of yearning and feel the draw to return to the person you lost or to a place that you left. For the individual, this creates a connection to things in your past.

    Forces Introspection

    • The increased feelings of efficacy generate a deep introspective mindset in your brain. You feel naturally inspired to think about the things you lost and the ways they affected your life. You can feel this as part of your attempts to rationalize the loss, when you feel responsible for the loss or regret having lost the person or thing in your life. As an example, after a difficult break up, you may feel personal feelings of responsibility about the breakup. These emotions function as a means of personalizing your loss even further, and generating an emotional drive to repair those relationships.

    Helps You Cope With Loss

    • The emotional suffering that occurs as a result of sadness is painful, but the natural feeling of sadness only lasts for a few minutes. These sad feelings can turn naturally into a sad mood, which can last for a few weeks to a few months. The effect of this is that the emotional stress you feeling during your sad feelings eases significantly as your emotions move into a sad mood. When the mood has passed, you enter a period where you can adjust to life without the loss and cope with having lost the person or thing from your life. This emotional transition helps you cope with loss, while moving through stages where your brain biologically reduces your grief.

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