Sadness: Definition, Causes, & Related Emotions

By Zamfira Parincu, BA, Researcher
​Reviewed by Tchiki Davis, M.A., Ph.D.

What is sadness? Find out why it is important to learn how to sit with sadness and some techniques to overcome it.

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Sadness is a natural and extremely common emotion. Most likely, we all felt a bit sad in 2020, perhaps because it was so long since we saw our friends or were able to travel. But bad moods aren’t always so bad. Throughout time, humanity cherished the negative feelings evoked by inevitable misfortunes—for example, greek tragedies, classical music and literature that emphasize engulfing sadness, and philosophers that encourage accepting life’s inevitable adversities. So what is sadness? We’ll discuss it here.

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What Is Sadness? (A Definition)

Sadness is an emotional pain that usually has a clear cause, such as losing a loved one, a failure at something important, or an unsuccessful goal.

Feeling sad is normal. Despite our constant efforts to make life perfect and pain-free, sadness will inevitably come, whether it’s from that promotion we didn’t get or a heated argument with a loved one. Everyone has a bad day sometimes, and we all feel sadness at some point in our lives.

Sadness is also a healthy emotion. Although it might not be the most comfortable emotion, as we usually tend to do our best to avoid it, sadness is valid. It teaches you to appreciate life, gives you insight into the inner worlds of others, and allows you to process life changes.
​
In Inside Out, an Academy Award-winning movie about Riley’s emotions as she struggles with life changes, all emotions have a hard time understanding Sadness’s purpose. Although it takes an intense adventure into the far reaches of Riley’s mind, in the end, it’s all clear: Sadness is not just about being sad but also emphasizes other feelings, such as compassion, empathy, or love, and it connects people on a deeper level. You can watch a short video on how Sadness went from being the outcast of the group to being empowered below:

Video: Joy Realizes Why Sadness Is an Important Emotion

The “you need to be happy”, toxic positivity mentality only takes away from the joys of your life.

Why Do You Feel Sadness?

There are many reasons why you could feel sad, as sadness is a part of our life. You could be sad because you lost your job. Or you could be sad because you didn't celebrate an important holiday with your loved ones. Maybe it’s been so long since you had a heartfelt conversation with a close friend. 

​If you feel sad, you might also:

• Cry more often
• Lose interest in activities that you used to enjoy
• Drink more alcohol than before
• Have trouble sleeping

​We all want to be happy. But the pressure to be happy and cheerful every single day can be extremely tiring and detrimental to our actual well-being. Many philosophers argue that to be happy, we first need to let ourselves be sad. To learn more about this duality, you can check the video below:

Video: How to Be Sad

Sadness vs. Depression

Sadness is a natural and normal emotion. You can be sad when your friend moves across the globe, and you won’t be able to hang out with them that much anymore. You can be sad when you lose a job or an important relationship. Feeling sad sometimes is not only normal but also a sign that there are important things in your life worth protecting. Sadness is just another way we are human.

Depression is different from sadness.
Although we casually use the words interchangeably and say things like “I’m so depressed today,” not only are they different, but it’s crucial to differentiate between them. Sadness is a normal emotion that we all experience. Clinical depression is a serious medical disorder. 

When you’re sad, although you feel down, you are still able to enjoy hanging out with friends or laughing at a good movie. When you’re experiencing depression, however, usually it’s not the same: what brought you pleasure before doesn’t have the same effect now.

Depression, or major depressive disorder, is a medical condition that negatively affects your social or work-related daily functioning, has an impact on your body, and even alters your brain. Although feelings of sadness may be associated with depression, the difference between depression and sadness is not only about intensity or degree but also how it negatively affects the person’s body and mind.

Health professionals use the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) to diagnose mental illnesses. To be diagnosed with clinical depression, they need to experience at least five (or more) symptoms during a 2-week period. Also, at least one symptom should be a (1) depressed mood or (2) loss of interest or pleasure. The severity of each symptom is also important when health professionals make an assessment (DSM-5, 2013).

The symptoms are:

1. Feeling depressed most of the day, nearly every day.
2. Lack of interest and enjoyment in activities. 
3. Trouble sleeping, or sleeping too much.
4. Trouble eating, or eating too much, and weight gain or weight loss.
5. Extreme fatigue most of the day, nearly every day.
6. Inappropriate or exaggerated feelings of guilt or worthlessness.
7. Inability to concentrate or indecisiveness.
8. Recurrent suicidal thoughts or actions, or thinking a lot about death and dying.

​To better understand the differences between sadness and depression, let’s look at how differently they affect a person. When you are sad after a negative event in your life, although your sleep quality may decrease, you will likely still be able to sleep as you normally do.

Depression and sleep are closely connected. Many studies have shown that depression is overwhelmingly associated with a significant disruption of the normal sleeping pattern, specifically insomnia. For example, 75% of depressed patients have insomnia and 40% have hypersomnia (excessive sleeping and difficulty staying awake during the day) (Nutt, Wilson & Paterson, 2008). So, being sad and experiencing clinical depression impact your sleeping patterns differently.

Sadness vs Anxiety vs Anger

Sadness, anxiety, and anger are different. Just because they are different doesn’t mean an event can’t trigger all of them. For example, if you lost your job, you could feel sad about how it happened, be angry because it wasn’t fair, and experience anxiety when thinking about how you’re going to pay your bills.

Another example can be if you had to move to a completely different area for reasons that you had no control over, such as health problems of a family member. In this case, you can be sad that you’re moving away from your friends, feel angry that you have to start over again or that you don’t like the new place, and feeling anxiety when thinking about meeting new people and building connections.

Sometimes, however, the distinction between them is not as clear. A quote that circles the Internet, often attributed to CS Lewis, captures how sadness and anger are intertwined: “I sat with my anger long enough until she told me her real name was grief.” Highlighting the connection between sadness and anger and how to differentiate between them, the quote aims at letting your emotions be.

Allowing yourself to feel your emotions, instead of suppressing them can increase your awareness of how to deal with them and practice acceptance. If you feel that you lost an important part of your identity, getting angry at the world can make sense in the short term. It’s important to understand that you can use this anger to enable positive change in your life.

Anxiety and anger can pose risks for your mental and physical health, too. They have been shown to increase vulnerability to illnesses and heart diseases, compromise the immune system, infection response, and recovery time, and increase the risk of death (Suinn, 2001).

Sadness vs Loneliness

Sadness is different from loneliness, although they are closely connected and usually appear together. Loneliness is about a gap between how much social connection you’d like and the actually experienced connection. Loneliness comes from our human desire to connect, an important aspect of our lives and well-being, and is not only about the number of social connections but also about their quality. For instance, you could be friendly with many colleagues and still feel lonely sometimes because you’d like to be closer to them.

Loneliness is a very common experience. If you feel lonely, you are not alone. In fact, the majority of us felt lonely at least one time in our lives. Recent reports show that 61% of young adults and 36% of all Americans feel “Serious loneliness,” meaning feeling lonely “frequently” or “almost all the time or all the time” (Weissbourd et al., 2021). No wonder why researchers have warned us about the loneliness epidemic.

Loneliness has serious consequences for your mental and physical health (Mushtaq et al., 2014), including:

• Diabetes
• Heart problems
• Obesity
• Sleep issues
• Poor health
• Physiological aging 
• Mortality 
• Depression 

​Sadness and loneliness often coexist. When something bad happens, such as you lost an important person or had to move to a different area, you can feel sad about the change in your life and lonely or disconnected from your friends. Sadness can trigger loneliness and isolation, which may increase feelings of sadness. As sadness and loneliness continue this vicious cycle, both increase in intensity, feeding off each other. Although it may seem that this continuous loop is impossible to break, it’s important to know that there are things you can do to improve.

​Here are some tips for beating loneliness.

Tips & Techniques for Overcoming Sadness

Sadness is a normal aspect of our lives. “The opposite of depression is not happiness, but vitality,” writes Andrew Solomon in The Noonday Demon, an atlas about depression.  If you find yourself feeling sad for longer than usual or with a higher intensity than before, there are a few things you can do to overcome the sadness and bring back vitality.

• Be aware. Gently ask yourself what is causing you these feelings. It may be work-related, or about a friend, or even about something that you didn’t do as you promised. It’s important to be self-aware and live in the moment. As sadness can also appear when you’re lonely, grieving, feeling helpless, the first step to feeling better is to identify what caused you to be sad in the first place.
• Be sad. I know it can seem counterintuitive, but allowing yourself to feel the sadness you’re experiencing, giving it time and space, can be extremely beneficial. If you suppress or deny your emotions, it can lead to actual physical stress on your body and mental health issues. Cry if you feel like it or take a few hours to recharge. Studies actually echo what philosophers have been saying for decades: tears are cathartic, working like a purifying mechanism that helps you release stress and emotional pain (Newhouse, 2021).
• Be compassionate. If you validate your sadness, it can help you move through it. Be curious and compassionate about what makes you sad or what about the current loss makes it harder for you. Figure out what type of comforting you need, maybe talk to a friend or spend the evening alone, and allow yourself to get the self-compassion you need (Hendel, 2020).
• Practice mindfulness. Mindfulness is all about maintaining presence in the moment without judgment. When you practice mindfulness, you train your brain to be present and not stressed out or sad about previous events that you have no control over.
• Connect. Although sometimes, when you’re sad, connecting with your loved one might be the last thing you want to do, it can actually be beneficial. Loneliness and sadness go hand in hand, but reaching out to friends or family might positively affect your mood and strengthen your social connections. Many studies have linked having a strong support network to lower depression symptoms (Pfeiffer et al., 2010).
• Improve your sleep hygiene. Sleep and mood are strongly connected. Studies clearly show the significant relation between sleep and depressive symptoms (Nutt, Wilson & Paterson, 2008), so getting more sleep can improve your mood. Some strategies to promote sleep quality include not using your phone at least an hour before bed, reading a book, and getting some physical exercise during the day.

Sadness Quotes

• “Because wherever I sat—on the deck of a ship or at a street café in Paris or Bangkok—I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air.” ― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar 
  
• “Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word “happy” would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.”  ― C. G. Jung 
  
• “Tears are words that need to be written.” ― Paulo Coelho 
  
• ​​“Any fool can be happy. It takes a man with real heart to make beauty out of the stuff that makes us weep.” ― Clive Barker, Abarat: Days of Magic, Nights of War ​
  

Articles Related to Sadness

Want to learn more about sadness and how to overcome it? Here are some more articles to read.​

• ​How to Be Happy: 21 Science-Based Ways to Be Happier
• Feeling Sad? Try These 20 Science-Based Depression Busters
• Negativity: Definition, Bias, & Tips to Stop It
• Negative Emotions: List & 158 Examples (+ PDF)

Books About Sadness

​​If you’d like to keep learning more about sadness, here are a few books that you might be interested in.

• The Other Side of Sadness: What the New Science of Bereavement Tells Us About Life After Loss​
• Sadness, Love, Openness: The Buddhist Path of Joy
• Rewire Your Brain: Think Your Way to a Better Life by John B. Arden

Final Thoughts on Sadness

We all want to be happy, but we shouldn’t suppress our more uncomfortable feelings in the process. Sadness is a normal and natural emotion, working to show us what is important and valuable in our lives.

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References

• ​American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). 
• Mushtaq, R., Shoib, S., Shah, T., & Mushtaq, S. (2014). Relationship between loneliness, psychiatric disorders and physical health? A review on the psychological aspects of loneliness. Journal of clinical and diagnostic research: JCDR, 8(9), WE01.
• Newhouse, L. (2021, March 21). Is crying good for you? Harvard Health Blog. 
• Nutt, D., Wilson, S., & Paterson, L. (2008). Sleep disorders as core symptoms of depression. Dialogues in clinical neuroscience, 10(3), 329.
• Pfeiffer, P. N., Heisler, M., Piette, J. D., Rogers, M. A., & Valenstein, M. (2011). Efficacy of peer support interventions for depression: a meta-analysis. General hospital psychiatry, 33(1), 29-36.
• Suinn, R. M. (2001). The terrible twos—anger and anxiety: Hazardous to your health. American Psychologist, 56(1), 27–36. 
• Solomon, A. (2014). The noonday demon: An atlas of depression. Simon and Schuster.
• Weissbourd, R., Batanova, M., Lovison, V., & Torres, E. (2021). Loneliness in America how the Pandemic Has Deepened an Epidemic of Loneliness and What We Can Do about it. Making Caring Common Project.

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