Stop cheering up your sad friend

A study published in the American Psychological Association suggests that people going through an emotional breakdown might benefit more from being simply understood and empathized with rather than being forcefully cheered up.

Even though our immediate answer to a dear one’s sadness might be to try to cheer them up, this might not be the appropriate solution as someone dealing with negativeness is in a delicate situation and will end up feeling alienated and not understood.

Talking through someone’s problems, on the other hand, may provide some degree of relief. Empathy is the best solution in such cases. As psychologists admit, it is more important to listen to someone and try to understand their grief than to try and come up with solutions.

The reason why we tend to put on a happy face when someone is feeling down is because ‘people tend to be uncomfortable dealing with negative emotion, so we believe it’s best that everyone thinks positively, and we try to make them think that way,’ as researcher Denise Marigold explains.