Sadness is always associated with unpleasant events such as death of relatives and close people, or breakups. This is one of the most unpleasant and negative impact on human emotions. Experiencing such events may last a very long period of time. Scientists have found why.
Recently, experts have found out that sadness lasts 240 times longer than any of 27 other emotions. Since sadness is a consequence of some tragic events, a person requires much more time to understand and accept what happened.
In order to establish the strength and duration of emotions, the scientists from the University of Leuven conducted an experiment and invited 233 students. The students should have named the last emotional experiences and tell how long did they last. In addition, they were asked to tell how they coped with their emotions.
Thus, it was found that disgust, fear, shame, surprise, anger and even boredom lasts much less than sadness. A person spends about 120 hours to overcome sadness. While it takes only 30 minutes to "consciously accept" shame or disgust.
A person can feel joy about 35 hours and needs about 60 hours to overcome hatred. By the way, boredom is categorized as short-time emotion, although it feels that when you are bored the time stops, but, in fact, that emotion does not last very long.
The researchers have also proved that the emotions that a person does not attach much importance to last a short period of time. Accordingly, the events that carry serious consequences for a person are experienced for a long time.