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Why The Past Feels Better Than Now

Hidden Brain, 8 min, 3.3K views, Aug 11, 2026

Show description

Listen to the Hidden Brain podcast: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hidden-brain/id1028908750 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/20Gf4IAauFrfj7RBkjcWxh Is nostalgia a harmless flicker of sentiment, or something with real power over how we live? In this video, we explore what psychologist Clay Routledge discovered when he studied this feeling: why it finds us on our worst days rather than our best, what it’s doing to our memories, and when this comforting emotion becomes a dangerous one. ____ Hidden Brain, hosted by me, Shankar Vedantam, is finally on YouTube! Like my podcast, this new video series will explore the unconscious patterns driving human behavior, our choices, and our relationships. ____ FIND HIDDEN BRAIN ONLINE Website: https://www.hiddenbrain.org/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hiddenbrain/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenbrainshow Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HiddenBrain/ Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/hiddenbrain.bsky.social X: https://x.com/HiddenBrain Patreon/Hidden Brain+: https://www.patreon.com/HiddenBrainf

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