Rewatching Your Favorite Shows Benefits Mental Health, Study Proves

Did you know that rewatching your favorite shows benefits your mental health? Studies explain how returning to old films over and over again helps people psychologically. Here's why.

It makes you happy

The Journal of Consumer Research published a study in 2012 and revealed the reasons why. In it, the University of Chicago Press stated that going back to anything brings pleasure to human beings. The research proved that reading your favorite book or dining at a local diner you always go to makes you happy. 

Cristel Antonia Russell and Sidney J. Levy, study authors, explained what they found out in their study. They stated that people who choose to replay hedonic experiences are not only expressing them but also affirming their individual experiences. 

READ: Maine Teen Dies by Suicide After Feeling Locked at Home

Seeking something from them

The authors also noted that people who repeat the shows even once means that it has a special meaning for them. Russell and Levy wrote that hedonic volitional reconsumption keeps up with the origin of the word "repetition."

They also noted that the word "reconsumption" is a petition and a form that shows someone actively seeking. Apart from that, it is also one way for a person to ask something from the past and one way for becoming instead of returning. 

It means that when you go watch some old movies you have watched before, it is a way for you to look for something and not just for the purpose of rewinding them. In conclusion, the authors wrote that when you watch a cherished television movie or show many times throughout your life, it makes you comforted and happy. 

READ: Loneliness in Youth Affects Long-Term Mental Health, Study Proves

Getting to know more of yourself

For some people, rewatching their favorite shows help make them get to know themselves better. Sometimes, doing so helps make them feel more connected to their inner selves. "Parents" also noted that most people who go back to a well-known crew of characters bring warmth in their lives. 

The outlet also noted that returning to a bar where everyone knows you can bring warm feelings of attachment just like how a roadside diner you often went to when you were young makes you happy. Nostalgia has its way of making you feel good for a reason.

READ: Men and Depression: Recognizing the Warning Signs

New interpretation and perspective

The best part of returning to your old favorites is that you interpret the same shows with a new perspective as you grow up and evolve. So the next time you are bored and got nothing to do, why not try to rewatch your favorite good old movies and series? 

Now, you have all the more good reason to enjoy them over and over again. So go ahead, play those princess's stories that you have been fantasizing for!