Why Do Some Emotions Stay Longer?
Ever had a feeling that just wouldn’t leave, like an unwanted guest who overstays?
Maybe you’re still feeling the disappointment of missing out on that promotion, days after the news. Or you’ve been anxious for what feels like forever because of a difficult conversation you’re dreading.
But think about how quickly the fear from watching a thriller movie vanished, or how fast boredom faded away once that dull meeting ended.
So why do some emotions disappear like a passing breeze, while others linger longer?
This is a question one of my readers recently asked me, and it reminded me of some research studies on emotion duration.
Emotion duration is about how long an emotional episode lasts. It’s the time from when a feeling starts to when it ends. Each emotional episode is triggered by an event that matters to us—like being passed over for that promotion, or even just imagining it might happen. The disappointment you feel is tied to that event. But when does it actually end? There’s less agreement on that part, but generally, it’s when your emotional intensity returns to baseline and stays there.
In one of the most comprehensive studies on this, researchers Philippe Verduyn and Saskia Lavrijsen uncovered which emotions last longer and why.
In their study, participants were asked to recall recent emotional experiences and report how long each emotion lasted. They also rated the importance of the event that triggered the emotion and indicated which emotion regulation strategies they used, like rumination or distraction. The study examined 27 emotions in total.
Here are some findings about the duration of different emotions:
Sadness lasted significantly longer than any other emotion.
Shame was the shortest but not significantly shorter than surprise, fear, disgust, boredom, being touched, irritation, and relief.
Fear was significantly shorter than anxiety, and guilt was significantly longer than shame.
Hope lasted significantly longer than emotions such as guilt, irritation, boredom, disgust, fear, and shame.
But what makes some emotions stay longer than others?
Turns out, two big factors play a role: how important the event is to us, and how much we keep thinking about it.
1. When the event matters, it stays.
Imagine you’ve poured months of effort into a project only for your boss to criticise it publicly. It’s not just the embarrassment of the moment that hurts—it’s the feeling that your hard work, maybe even yourself, weren’t good enough.
In Verduyn’s study, emotions triggered by events we perceive as important—ones that hit our goals, values, or identity—tend to last longer. The more we feel like the event touches on something that matters deeply to us, the more the emotion digs in and refuses to budge.
2. Rumination: the mental hamster wheel
Ever caught yourself replaying a conversation in your head, analysing every detail? Imagine you’re lying in bed, unable to sleep because you keep replaying that criticism in your head. You try to figure out why your boss said it, what you could have done differently.
That’s rumination, and it’s a recipe for keeping emotions like sadness or hatred around much longer than they need to be. Rumination keeps you on an emotional hamster wheel—exhausted and going nowhere fast.
Researchers found that sadness and anger, in particular, are prone to rumination. When we ruminate, we’re effectively feeding the emotional fire.
Fear fades faster than anxiety.
Another interesting finding from the study is that fear vanishes more quickly than anxiety, even though both emotions centre around threat. While the researchers didn’t explore the reason behind this, my guess is that because fear is usually tied to an immediate danger—like when you’re startled by a sudden loud noise, once the threat is gone, so is the fear.
Anxiety, however, is more about future threats, real or imagined. Since the source of anxiety is harder to pinpoint or resolve, the emotion lingers. It doesn’t have a clear end point because the threat isn’t always immediate or concrete. And, as with sadness and anger, anxiety is often accompanied by rumination, which further sustains it.
Boredom is short-lived.
On the flip side, boredom was found to be one of the shortest-lasting emotions. My own assumption here is that because boredom arises from a lack of stimulation, as soon as something interesting captures your attention, the boredom dissipates. And it doesn’t carry the same emotional weight or intensity as sadness, anxiety, or anger, making it easier to move on from.
So, what can we do with all this information?
1. Break the rumination cycle.
Since ruminating prolongs negative emotions, it’s helpful to find alternative coping strategies. For example, seeking social support or focusing on problem-solving might be more effective strategies than rumination. Self-distancing, where you view your situation as an outsider or “fly on the wall,” can also help emotions dissipate faster. I’ve written about self-distancing before, and you can read more about it here.
2. Reframe the situation.
If the significance we attach to an event impacts the duration of our emotions, one powerful strategy is to reframe the situation. By changing the meaning we assign to an event or adjusting our perspective, we can shorten the emotional response. For instance, instead of seeing criticism as a personal failure, you could view it as an opportunity to grow. Make sure you do it in situations where you don’t have much control.
But we may not want to change certain emotions by merely reappraising them. For example, anger can be useful in competitive situations or in the fight against injustice. Similarly, a certain level of worry can motivate us to take action. This suggests that we should assess the usefulness of our emotions and decide whether we want to alter them based on the context.
3. Let positive emotions linger.
On the flip side, if you want to extend the duration of positive emotions, practice savouring. Reflect on the positive event, talk about it with others, or journal about how it made you feel. By deliberately focusing on the good, you can make emotions like joy and hope last longer.
Rumination and how important the event is play a big role in how long an emotion sticks around, according to this study. But of course, there are other factors. Without diving too deep into the research, here are two more factors, from different research, that influence how long our emotions last:
The presence of the emotion-eliciting stimulus. For example, if you're angry because of something your father said, having him around might keep that anger simmering. But if you shift your focus away from what caused the emotion—distract yourself—in the first place, it could lead to a quicker emotional cooldown.
Personality traits make a difference, too. Extraverts, for example, often experience longer-lasting positive emotions compared to introverts. Meanwhile, people who are less emotionally stable (high in neuroticism) tend to have longer-lasting negative emotions than those who are more emotionally stable.
Based on my 20-plus years of experience working with clients in therapy, it’s fair to say that rumination is rarely a helpful strategy. Although refraining from rumination may not guarantee relief from emotions, engaging in it will likely intensify them.
Sometimes, though, emotions need time to run their course, and we need time to process them. In fact, trying to constantly change or control our feelings can sometimes backfire.
Ultimately, research in this area is a reminder that how we handle our emotions matters. A small shift in perspective—such as reframing the situation, distracting ourselves—might all it takes to change the way we experience them.