Why can you feel sad up to 240 times longer than you feel embarrassed, surprised, irritated or even bored? This is because grief often goes hand in hand with higher impact events such as death or accidents.
In grief, you need more time to think about and deal with what happened to fully grasp it, say Philippe Verduyn and Saskia Lavrijsen from the University of Leuven in Belgium. Theirs research, published in Springer's journal Motivation and Emotion, is the first to provide clear evidence explaining why some emotions last longer than others.
Scientists followed research participants in their daily lives and analyzed their emotions, as well as their intensity and average duration.
They found that out of as many as 27 different feelings, joy lasts as much as 35 hours or a day and a half.
Getting over the breakup of a love relationship, the death of a loved one, or a general feeling of sadness is the strongest emotion for people, and it takes about 240 times longer than other feelings – such as shame, surprise, nervousness or boredom, according to a study by the Belgian University of Leuven.
So sadness lasts the longest - about 120 hours, followed by the feeling of hatred, which lasts about 60 hours for people on average, and joy about 35 hours, the scientists found.
Let's look at some more feelings and their duration:
Mourning: 120 hours
Hatred: 60 hours
Despair, hope, anxiety, disappointment and satisfaction: 24 hours
Jealousy: 15 hours
Relief: 8 hours
Excitement: 6 hours
Admiration and gratitude: 5 hours
Relaxation: 4.3 hours
Guilt: 3.5 hours
Stress: 3 hours
Pride: 2.6 hours
Affection: 2.5 hours
Anger, boredom, surprise: 2 hours
Nervousness, Compassion: 1.3 hours
Humiliation: 0.8 hours
Fear: 0.7 hours
Shame, disgust: 0.5 hours
