Psychologist explains the benefits of rewatching our favorite TV shows over and over again

An expert has revealed the hidden benefits of rewatching your favorite TV shows or movies over and over again.

Psychologist Wendy Dignan, from Cheshire, has explained how watching a movie, series or single episode that has special meaning to us on multiple occasions can help us improve our well-being.

She described the practice as a form of escapism, telling FEMAIL: “We get absorbed in the TV shows, we identify with the characters and we become part of their world and reality.”

She said, “It becomes a form of alternate alternate reality for ourselves, and a form of escapism to a better, possible place to a more comfortable place and the characters become friends, they become family, they become a connection. with the rest of the world.” ‘

Digging deeper, Wendy observed that we can’t control or predict our everyday lives, but we can anticipate what happens next in our favorite movies or TV shows.

Seeing the progress of the plots provides a sense of control, according to Wendy, because we know that these programs will work well in the end, whereas life is not necessarily always that simple.

Wendy said: “And sometimes it takes us back to a happy and safe time, either when we used to watch the show, or it gets sucked into a time when we were happier.”

This type of homesickness is therapeutic and can have a positive impact on our brain, as a recent study suggested that the emotional complexity of homesickness requires the brain to practice emotional regulation.

While most people would associate nostalgia with good things, part of the nostalgic experience is that ‘bittersweet’ feeling of longing or absence that comes with it.

As such, our brains have to balance positive and negative emotions at once, which has an overall calming effect on our emotional state.

Wendy suggested that rewatching old shows, particularly during the pandemic, became a safety issue.

She hypothesized: “People probably ritualized watching family shows to normalize the world.”

“The shows have stayed the same and the characters were predictable, all bringing a sense of security and normality.

‘And a world at the time of the pandemic was neither normal nor predictable. So I suspect that was something during COVID.

He added that as humans, we are “social creatures” who like to belong “to a pack.”

We are like wired in an evolutionary process to belong to a pack. In a world that encourages less face-to-face contact, with computers and zoom and social media.’

That need to belong to a group still exists, but today it is not so easy to satisfy in an advanced technological world.

However, we can achieve the social groups we long for through the familiarity of characters on a show.

Wendy explained, “It all gives a sense of a larger connection to the larger world in a way that is easier to access without the complexities of modern relationships.”

Finally, according to the Cheshire psychologist, there is a sense of relaxation when rewatching our favorite TV shows.

She said, ‘It doesn’t take any effort to follow a plot or keep up with the characters and plots.

“It’s very relaxing, and you can completely switch off and just relax. It’s like that nonsense TV you watch and you’re not quite sure what happened.

“But you know, you’ve seen the show, but you probably couldn’t talk about the story.”

Unpacking this further, he referred to “car accident TV,” using the Kardashians as an example.

She said: ‘ You know, that fulfills that familiarity, in the fact that you know what’s going to happen in an episode, you can get sucked into this almost fantasy world.

“But it doesn’t take a lot of effort to maintain the plot lines, and almost watching a show that you know, probably what’s going to happen and maybe even can recite the lines back to front, that provides the same familiarity.

“It doesn’t require any brain power to see it and is therefore very relaxing.”