Nostalgia: Why our brain is hardwired to crave it Nostalgia is a universal sentiment that can be loosely defined as a wistful longing for the past. It’s an emotion that everyone experiences at one point or another - when an old song plays on the radio, when we flip through aged photographs, or when we visit places we used to go during our childhood. But why is it so easy to fall into nostalgic thoughts? On its surface it seems simple: conjuring fond feelings from our past just makes us feel good. But according to psychologists, consuming nostalgic media of all types gives us a way of thinking about who we are - it helps us connect to our identity.