meaning of sadness essay

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What is Sadness?

Sadness is one of the seven universal emotions experienced by everyone around the world resulting from the loss of someone or something important. W hat causes us sadness varies greatly based on personal and cultural notions of loss. While sadness is often considered a “negative” emotion, it serves an important role in signaling a need to receive help or comfort.

Feeling sadness

Sadness describes the range, or family , of emotional states we can experience containing everything from mild disappointment to extreme despair and anguish.

Sadness can also be experienced along with other emotions, such as:

• Anger (e.g., having a loved one abandon you)
• Fear (e.g., that we will not be able to cope or move on with life)
• Joy (e.g., reminiscing about time spent with the lost person or thing; pleasure from the comfort provided by others)

What makes us sad

The universal trigger for sadness is the loss of a valued person or object, though this can vary greatly between individuals based on their personal definitions of value and loss.

Common sadness triggers:

• Rejection by a friend or lover
• Endings and goodbyes
• Sickness or death of a loved one
• The loss of some aspect of identity (e.g., during times of transition at home, work, life stages)
• Being disappointed by an unexpected outcome (e.g., not receiving a raise at work when you expected it)

Moods and disorders

The key difference between mood and emotion is duration, or how long it lasts. Sadness is one of the longer-lasting emotions and often cycles through periods of protest, resignation, and helplessness. It’s important to note, however, that sadness is different from depression, which is a common but serious psychological disorder described by recurrent, persistent, and intense feelings of sadness and hopelessness that interfere with daily living.

For more information about depression, read here .

Recognizing sadness

Facial expression of sadness.

One very strong and reliable sign of sadness is the angling-up of the inner corners of the eyebrows. Few people are able to manipulate these muscles voluntarily, making it especially difficult to fake (unlike some other facial movements).

Vocal expression of sadness

Depending on the type and intensity of sadness, someone’s voice can either become lower in pitch and softer in volume, or higher in pitch and louder in volume (e.g., wailing).

Sensations of sadness

Common sensations include tightness of the chest, heaviness of the limbs, stinging in the throat, and/or watery eyes.

Posture of sadness

There is often a loss of muscle tone, a lowered or hunched posture, and looking away and/or downwards.

The function of sadness

The universal function of sadness is to, in some way, signal for help. This can be a signal to others saying that we need comforting, or to ourselves to take some time and recoup from our loss.

Responding to sadness in ourselves

Some people can derive pleasure from their sadness and may even seek out experiences that evoke sadness for a cathartic effect. Others, however, have an extreme aversion to sadness and may go to great lengths to avoid situations which they believe may trigger the emotion. This may even cause some to avoid attachment or commitment since it could leave them vulnerable to loss and sadness.

Responding to sadness in others

Knowing how someone is feeling doesn’t necessarily mean we want to acknowledge it -it depends on the context and the relationship. In some situations, simply acknowledging that you are sorry for another person’s loss might be helpful, whereas for others it may not be.

Spotting sadness when it is subtle tells you that something important is happening or has happened, that it involves loss, and that this person probably needs some form of comforting. The expression itself, however, doesn’t tell you whether you are the right person to give that comforting, or if this is the right time to offer it.

Additional Resources

Learn to recognize and respond to the emotional expressions of others with our online micro expressions training tools to increase your ability to detect deception and catch subtle emotional cues.

Expand your knowledge of emotional skills and competencies with live online and in-person workshops.

Delve into personal exploration and transformation with Cultivating Emotional Balance .

Build your emotional vocabulary with the Atlas of Emotions , a free, interactive learning tool created by Drs. Paul and Eve Ekman at the request of the Dalai Lama.

Read Dr. Ekman’s guide to emotions, the best-seller Emotions Revealed .

Introduce the world of emotions to children in a fun way with Dr. Ekman's official guide to Disney•Pixar's Inside Out .

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Four Ways Sadness May Be Good for You

Sadness is not usually valued in our current culture. Self-help books promote the benefits of positive thinking, positive attitude, and positive behaviors, labeling sadness as a “problem emotion” that needs to be kept at bay or eliminated. 

Evolution must have had something else in mind, though, or sadness wouldn’t still be with us. Being sad from time to time serves some kind of purpose in helping our species to survive. Yet, while other so-called “negative emotions,” like fear, anger, and disgust, seem clearly adaptive—preparing our species for flight, fight, or avoidance, respectively—the evolutionary benefits of sadness have been harder to understand…until recently, that is.

With the advent of fMRI imaging and the proliferation of brain research, scientists have begun to find out more about how sadness works in the brain and influences our thoughts and behavior. Though happiness is still desirable in many situations, there are others in which a mild sad mood confers important advantages.

Findings from my own research suggest that sadness can help people improve attention to external details, reduce judgmental bias, increase perseverance, and promote generosity. All of these findings build a case that sadness has some adaptive functions, and so should be accepted as an important component of our emotional repertoire.

Here are some of the ways sadness can be a beneficial emotion.

1. Sadness can improve your memory.

In one field study, we found that on rainy, unpleasant days that produce bad mood people had a much better recollection of details of objects they had seen in a shop. On bright, sunny days when people felt happy their memory was far less accurate in an identical situation. It seems that positive mood impairs, and negative mood improves attention and memory for incidental details in our environment.

In another experiment, my colleagues and I showed participants a photo of either a car crash scene or a wedding party scene.

Later, we asked participants to recall happy or sad memories from their past, in order to shift their mood. They then received some questions about the photos,  that were manipulated so that the questions either did or did not contain misleading or false information, such as “Did you see the stop sign at the scene?”—when there was no stop sign, only a yield sign. We later tested their eyewitness memory, and found that participants in a negative mood were better able to accurately remember original details, ignoring misleading information, while participants in positive moods made more mistakes.

This experiment points to a basic psychological fact: What we remember about the past can be greatly altered by subsequent misinformation. It seems that negative mood reduces the likelihood that later false information will distort the original memory.

So, being in the right mood can help improve our recollections. Research like ours consistently finds that happiness can produce less focused and attentive processing and so increases the chances of misleading information being incorporated into memory, while a negative mood improves attention to detail and results in better memory.

2. Sadness can improve judgment.

Humans constantly make social judgments, trying to read social cues in order to understand and predict others’ thoughts and behaviors. Unfortunately, these judgments can often be wrong, in part because of a number of shortcuts and biases that can lead us astray.

We repeatedly find that people are more likely to make social misjudgments due to biases when they are happy. When happy or sad participants in one study were asked to detect deception in videotaped statements of people accused of theft (who were either guilty or not guilty), participants in negative moods were more likely to make guilty judgments— but they were also significantly better at correctly distinguishing between deceptive and truthful suspects.

In another experiment, participants rated the likely truth of 25 true and 25 false general knowledge trivia statements, and, afterwards, they were told if each claim was actually true. Two weeks later, only sad participants were able to correctly distinguish between the true and false claims they had seen previously. Those in happier moods tended to rate all previously seen claims as true, confirming that a happy mood increases—and a sad mood reduces—the tendency to believe that what is familiar is actually true.

Sad moods reduce other common judgmental biases, such as “the fundamental attribution error,” in which people attribute intentionality to others’ behavior while ignoring situational factors, and the “halo effect,” where judges tend to assume a person having some positive feature—such as a handsome face—is likely to have others, such as kindness or intelligence. Negative moods can also reduce another judgmental bias, primacy effects—when people place too much emphasis on early information and ignore later details.

So negative mood can improve the accuracy of impression formation judgments, by promoting a more detailed and attentive thinking style.

3. Sadness can increase your motivation.

When we feel happy, we naturally want to maintain that happy feeling. Happiness signals to us that we are in a safe, familiar situation, and that little effort is needed to change anything. Sadness, on the other hand, operates like a mild alarm signal, triggering more effort and motivation to deal with a challenge in our environment.

Thus, people who are happier will sometimes be less motivated to push themselves toward action compared to someone in a negative mood, who will be more motivated to exert effort to change their unpleasant state.

We put this to the test by showing participants either happy or sad films—and then assigning them a demanding cognitive task with many difficult questions. There was no time limit, which allowed us to measure their perseverance by assessing the total time they spent on the questions, the number they answered, and the number they answered correctly. We found participants who were happy spent less time, attempted fewer items, and scored fewer correct answers than did participants we put in a negative mood, who spontaneously made more effort and achieved better results.

This suggests that a sad mood can increase and happy mood can reduce perseverance with difficult tasks, possibly because people are less motivated to exert effort when they already experience a positive mood. Sad mood in turn may increase perseverance as people see greater potential benefits of making an effort.

4. Sadness can improve interactions, in some cases.

In general, happiness increases positive interactions between people. Happy people are more poised, assertive, and skillful communicators; they smile more, and they are generally perceived as more likable than sad people.

However, in situations where a more cautious, less assertive and more attentive communication style may be called for, a sad mood may help. In one study, participants who first viewed happy or sad films were unexpectedly asked to go and request a file from a person in a neighboring office. Their requests were surreptitiously recorded by a concealed tape recorder. Analyses showed that the sad mood produced more polite, elaborate, and hedging requests, whereas those in a happy mood used more direct and less polite strategies.

Why would this be? In uncertain and unpredictable interpersonal situations, people need to pay greater attention to the requirements of the situation to formulate the most appropriate communication strategy. They must be able to read the cues of the situation and respond accordingly. Sad people are more focused on external cues and will not rely solely on their first impressions, which happy people are more inclined to trust.

In other experiments, we found that people in a sad mood are also more persuasive, produce more effective and concrete arguments to support their position, and are better able to convince others than are people in a positive mood.

Here’s another example: In social science experiments, researchers use the ultimatum game to study things like cooperation, trust, and generosity. They give players money and tell them to allocate as much as they want to another person who has the power to accept or reject the offer. If the offer is rejected, neither side gets anything. Past research has found that those in the giver role are not simply driven by maximizing benefits for themselves. However, the impact of mood on such decisions has not been previously measured.

My colleagues and I asked participants to play the ultimatum game after they’d been induced to feel happy or sad. We measured how long it took for them to make their allocation decisions and how much they gave. Those in sad moods gave significantly more to others than did happy people and took longer to make their decisions, suggesting that they paid greater attention to the needs of others and were more attentive and thoughtful in making their decisions.

In addition, when researchers looked at receivers in the game, they found that those in a sad mood were also more concerned with fairness, and rejected unfair offers more than did those in the happy condition In other words, mood can also influence selfishness and fairness.

Sadness is not depression

Though much has been made of the many benefits of happiness, it’s important to consider that sadness can be beneficial, too. Sad people are less prone to judgmental errors, are more resistant to eye-witness distortions, are sometimes more motivated, and are more sensitive to social norms. They can act with more generosity, too.

The benefits of sadness have their limits, of course. Depression—a mood disorder defined, at least in part, by prolonged and intense periods of sadness—can be debilitating. And no one is suggesting that we should try to induce sadness as a way of combating memory decline, for example. Research does not bear out the benefits of doing this.

But my research does suggest that mild, temporary states of sadness may actually be beneficial in handling various aspects of our lives. Perhaps that is why, even though feeling sad can be hard, many of the greatest achievements of Western art, music, and literature explore the landscape of sadness. In everyday life, too, people often seek ways to experience sadness, at least from time to time—by listening to sad songs, watching sad movies, or reading sad books.

Evolutionary theory suggests that we should embrace all of our emotions, as each has an important role to play under the right circumstances. So, though you may seek ways to increase happiness, don’t haphazardly push away your sadness. No doubt, it’s there for good reason.

About the Author

Joseph p. forgas.

Joseph P. Forgas, Ph.D., is a professor of psychology at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. He is the author or editor of numerous books, most recently The Message Within: The Role of Subjective Experience In Social Cognition And Behavior .

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All About Sadness: What Causes It, How to Cope With It, and When to Get Help

You may not particularly enjoy feeling sad. You may prefer experiencing other emotions. But if you try to avoid the emotion all together, mental health professionals want you to know not to.

People tend to think that sadness is always bad, says Meaghan Barlow, PhD , an assistant professor in the department of psychology at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, who studies self-regulation, emotion, and aging. “That's absolutely not my view.”

Distinct from depression — which the World Health Organization notes is a leading cause of disability worldwide — sadness is a common emotion. Dr. Barlow says that in the right context, sadness can even be helpful.

A growing body of research supports her point of view. Here, Barlow and other experts explain what sadness is, how it impacts well-being, and how you can cope when it feels like too much.

Common Questions & Answers

What is sadness.

Sadness is “an emotional state of unhappiness, ranging in intensity from mild to extreme and usually aroused by the loss of something that is highly valued,” according to the American Psychological Association (APA) .

The Difference Between Sadness and Anger

Both sadness and anger can feel unpleasant and distressing, and researchers sometimes lump the two together under the umbrella of “negative affect.” (This category also includes shame, guilt, anxiety, fear, and irritability, according to research .) But sadness and anger are distinct emotions with different purposes, as other research has outlined.

Anger often occurs in response to a perceived injustice, according to the APA . So when you’re angry, you might have tunnel vision and feel motivated to deal with some kind of problem. “Anger is useful in overcoming resistance,” says Joseph Forgas , a doctor of science in psychology and Scientia Professor of psychology at the University of New South Wales in Sydney.

For a long time, researchers didn’t know the purpose of sadness. But now researchers believe that sadness acts as a mild alert, says Dr. Forgas, who studies the emotion. Sadness tells you that you’re in an unfamiliar situation so you need to look out and be careful, he says. The emotion causes a slew of changes in thinking and behavior (more on that later), some of which Forgas detailed in a paper published in Current Directions in Psychological Science .

Think about a time you’ve experienced a major rejection, says Ethan Kross, PhD , a professor of psychology and management and organizations at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, who studies emotion and self-control.

In the aftermath of the unexpected rejection, sadness might cause you to step back and try to better understand what implications that loss has for you. Withdrawing to reflect is a very different response from the quick action of anger, says Dr. Kross.

The Difference Between Sadness and Depression

According to the APA, persistent sadness is one of the two defining symptoms of a major depressive episode. But to experience sadness is not the same as having depression.

In nondepressed individuals, sadness comes and goes. But when sadness is experienced intensely and for a long time, and is accompanied by other hallmark depression symptoms (lack of interest or pleasure in most activities, fatigue, and changes in appetite), it may indicate the presence of a depressive disorder. “It’s really about the degree and duration,” says Kross.

Depression, in contrast to sadness, tends to be debilitating, making it difficult to perform everyday tasks, according to the APA (PDF).

“It is a very serious disease that has very serious consequences,” says Forgas. That differs from everyday sad moods, which occur all the time to all of us.

How Can You Tell if It’s Depression or Everyday Sadness?

It can be tough to tell whether you’re experiencing everyday sadness or depression. Depression doesn’t look the same in everyone, which can make it difficult to recognize sometimes, Kross notes.

However, if you experience symptoms including fatigue, changes in your appetite, withdrawing from friends, feeling low energy, and the inability to feel happy over a two-week period to the extent that they’re interfering with day-to-day functioning, consider talking to your doctor about getting screened for a mood disorder.

9 Football Players Who’ve Spoken Up About Mental Health

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What causes sadness.

Sadness is ultimately caused by the loss of something important.

The sense of loss has an element of emotional time travel, according to Steven C. Hayes, PhD , a clinical psychologist and professor of psychology at the University of Nevada in Reno, who has developed therapeutic strategies that incorporate mindfulness and acceptance.

That means that when you experience sadness, Dr. Hayes says, you may be looking backward in time to something you once had or projecting forward and anticipating that your expectations won’t be met. For instance, you may feel sad about recent political upheaval because you hold an expectation for a future world that is more cooperative and kind, and that is threatened by current events.

This example highlights an important feature of a sadness-inducing loss: It touches on something you deeply care about.

What Does Sadness Feel Like?

You can recognize sadness in yourself and others through its telltale characteristics. According to a review published in 2020 in Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews , the following can be signs of sadness:

• Social withdrawal
• Decrease in reward seeking
• Slowed movement
• Down-turned mouth
• Drooping or downcast eyes
• Slanted inner eyebrows
• Slumped posture
• Increased or decreased heart rate
• Increased or decreased skin conductance (a measure of a small electric current in the skin that can indicate someone's level of arousal or emotional response, according to APA )

People who are sad might say they feel lonely, distressed, depressed, anxious, or grief.

Researchers who study sadness, including Forgas, acknowledge that the word “sadness” has multiple meanings. These meanings may map on to different experiences.

For example, a study published in 2017 in  Frontiers in Psychology compared sadness caused by imagining the death of a loved one and sadness caused by imagining failing to reach a goal. Even though participants in both groups felt sad, the two types of sadness were associated with distinct physical and psychological responses.

It can be a useful exercise to find your own description for what sadness is like for you, says Deb Dana, LCSW , a clinician and consultant specializing in complex trauma and author of Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory .

Dana suggests comparing and contrasting your experience of sadness with how its opposite, happiness, feels. For example, for her, happiness includes moving through the world with lightness, while sadness comes with a heavy feeling in her body. These extremes can help you notice more subtle versions of the feelings. “It’s easier to tap into when they’re so far apart,” she says.

How Sadness Affects Your Health and Well-Being

The main message coming from a very large number of experiments, including his own lab, says Forgas, is that many positive benefits come from mild, temporary sad moods. Forgas authored a review on the topic, which was published in the journal Australian Psychologist .

Sadness, like all emotions, serves an important function by helping us respond to our circumstances in ways that set us up to take better care of our emotional health and well-being. As Kross notes, when we feel sad, we step back, reflect, and return more prepared to deal with what’s in front of us.

And sadness may not have as many negative implications for health as other distressing emotions. Research suggests that inflammation and negative affect are linked. Increased inflammation is concerning, says Barlow, because of downstream negative consequences for physical health.

But when you look at just sadness, it may not actually affect the body in this way. Research from Barlow’s team, published in 2019 in  Psychology and Aging , links self-reported anger with increased inflammation and chronic illness, but not self-reported sadness.

Here are some of the specific benefits that have been linked to sadness, and when sadness itself can be unhealthy.

1. Sadness Can Help Broaden Your Thinking

In familiar situations, we all rely on mental shortcuts and intuition to get by. When you feel sad, these automatic tendencies are reduced. Forgas says that when you’re sad, it’s almost as if you pay more attention to what’s in front of you.

This approach helps you think more clearly in different ways, many of which Forgas has studied over the decades. His lab conducted research showing that people had better eyewitness memory when in a slightly worse mood. Another study demonstrated that on what Forgas calls “sad mood days,” people had improved recall and attention to the environment.

More recently, in a paper published in 2019 in  Current Directions in Psychological Science , he described a series of studies that together make the case that a sad mood makes people less gullible.

All of this happens without your noticing it. By the time you recognize that you’re sad, sadness tends to go away, Forgas says. The takeaway, he says, isn’t that you should try to make yourself sad on purpose to think more clearly; it’s that when you happen to be sad, you can take solace that it may be helping you accurately process what’s going on so you can proceed in healthy ways.

2. Sadness Can Help You Communicate Better

You might think you should wait to have a conversation until you’re in a good mood. But Forgas has conducted research that demonstrates that people in a negative mood appear to communicate better than those in a positive one. “They understand ambiguities in sentences better. They're better at persuading other people,” he says.

Forgas says that these effects work automatically, not consciously, so the idea isn’t to try to become sad on purpose before a tough conversation. Rather, don’t put off a difficult conversation because it makes you sad; you may be able to better state how you feel in the depths of the emotion.

3. Sadness Can Help With Social Connection

One of the primary functions of sadness is to signal the need for social support, says Barlow. Consider two people: one who is sad and one who is angry. When you see someone who is sad, you have an innate urge to assist them. When you see someone who is angry, you automatically pull away.

Researchers have published findings that demonstrate this gut reaction isn’t just you. One study looked at sad facial expressions and another study examined tears, and both found that those signs of sadness appear to signal to others that we could use their help.

Sadness appears to improve certain interpersonal skills as well. A study that Forgas was part of showed that people in a negative mood tend to be more fair toward others, while other  research showed that they are more polite.

4. Sadness Can Help You Accept Tough Realities

One of the key functions of sadness is helping you accept tough situations and come to terms with loss, says Barlow. While facilitating disengagement isn’t always good, it can sometimes be necessary. “Sometimes there are things beyond your control that it's actually adaptive to let go of,” Barlow says.

These occasions tend to happen more often as you age, Barlow explains. The onset of chronic illness, for example, often requires that you let go of the goal of trying to reverse or cure something, and instead accept your diagnosis and try to manage whatever it is you’re dealing with, she says.

Sadness helps with this by causing changes in thinking and behavior that help people adapt to loss and move forward based on a new circumstances —  research  (PDF) backs this up). In other words, sadness promotes coping, Forgas says.

5. Sadness May Be Motivation for Healthy Behavior Changes

Other research published in 2021 shows that sadness increases healthy intentions, such as quitting smoking or increasing exercise. People who are sad may feel empowered to make these healthy changes because emotions cause us to see the world in certain ways. Sadness, which is associated with the sense that someone or something is responsible for what has happened, appears to increase people’s belief that circumstances are controllable.

6. If Sadness Becomes Depression, Health Suffers

Despite all of these potential benefits associated with sadness, when the emotion is experienced too intensely or for too long, it can indeed be bad for your health, says Kross.

When sadness persists and is accompanied by other symptoms, it’s considered depression , a clinically diagnosed mood disorder. Research has linked depression to a host of health problems, including cardiovascular disease, according to a review in the  European Heart Journal , and death from cancer, per a systematic review in Molecular Psychiatry .

Barlow says that whether sadness is bad for your health is all about the context. Ideally, momentary experiences of sadness trigger its adaptive functions, then the sad feelings go away. But, she says, when sadness is consuming in a way that interferes with different aspects of your life, the feeling no longer serves its proper function.

How to Cope With Feeling Sad

A healthy response to sadness begins with allowing yourself to feel sadness when it comes, says Hayes. He says that habits like meditation and prayer can help you notice your sadness without judging it. In time, these mindfulness practices let you stay present with the sometimes painful feeling.

But feeling sadness doesn’t mean you need to spend hours alone wallowing or feeling bad, says Hayes.

Instead, according to Kross, a healthy response to sadness includes the capacity to dial down how strong the feeling is and shorten how long it lasts. Kross has put together a list of science-backed tools  (PDF) that he says can help you do this. One option is to spend time in nature, which can have a calming effect, according to a research review published in Behavioral Sciences . Kross says that using these skills lets you benefit from sadness without experiencing the problems that come when the feeling is too intense or persists for too long.

One benefit of sadness comes when we learn from it, says Hayes. It can be helpful to see emotions as gentle guides, not dictators, that provide “one of several sources of information about our present moment,” he says. When you take time to reflect on this information, you can, hopefully, learn something that allows you to move on, adds Kross.

But it’s also true that the chronic experience of sadness is a valid reason to seek support, Barlow adds.

If your sadness interferes with living the life you want for more than two weeks, or if your coping tools aren’t helping, that’s a cue to get professional help, says Kross.

And if you’re ever not sure how severe it is, err on the side of taking your sadness seriously, says Barlow. Instead of going it alone, tell a person you trust about what’s been going on. Someone like your primary care provider can help you decide if you need further care and what to do next.

Other strategies for better coping with sadness include:

• Practicing mindfulness
• Normalizing the feeling
• Experiencing awe

Learn More About How to Cope With Sadness

Sadness Resources We Love

Favorite orgs for depression info.

National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)

NIMH is a federal agency that researches mental disorders, which means it’s a reliable place to get tons of free educational materials, research updates, and support for emotional wellness. If you are a visual thinker and want clear information to help you figure out if your sadness is actually depression (and where to get help if it is), check out NIMH’s infographics on the mood disorder.

Favorite Online Support Network

Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA)

ADAA is an international nonprofit dedicated to preventing, treating, and curing anxiety and depression. On its website, it hosts a free peer-to-peer community filled with people who get it. The website also features lots of personal stories and can be a great place to visit if you’re looking to feel less alone with any sadness you’re experiencing.

National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)

NAMI is the largest mental health nonprofit in the United States. Its website is packed with helpful resources, but what we love most is its support groups, which are free and geared toward people who experience mental health challenges and their families. You don’t need to be officially diagnosed with a mental health disorder to join — NAMI welcomes anyone who is looking for support with symptoms, including persistent sadness.

Favorite Movies

This 2015 Disney movie provides a surprisingly sophisticated take on our core emotions: joy, anger, fear, disgust, and sadness. The way that sadness is portrayed, in particular, beautifully maps on to what experts told us about this misunderstood feeling and the way it helps us change our goals and beliefs in the face of loss. In fact, during the course of research for this article, Inside Out came up several times, including in a  science-based book chapter about sadness (PDF).

Favorite Resources for Managing Feelings

Chatter Toolbox (PDF)

Want quick, simple ways to deal with distressing thoughts? Kross compiled 10 of them in what he calls the Chatter Toolbox. He says that these tips can help with any unpleasant feelings, including sadness.

Virtual Therapy

Online therapy platforms give you quick access to licensed therapists using your preferred mode of communication, from video sessions to messaging. Many platforms also include journaling exercises, worksheets, assessments, and other special features. Be sure to check out affordable and free online therapy options, too.

Editorial Sources and Fact-Checking

Everyday Health follows strict sourcing guidelines to ensure the accuracy of its content, outlined in our editorial policy . We use only trustworthy sources, including peer-reviewed studies, board-certified medical experts, patients with lived experience, and information from top institutions.

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• Tan HB, Forgas JP. When Happiness Makes Us Selfish, but Sadness Makes Us Fair: Affective Influences on Interpersonal Strategies in the Dictator Game. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology . May 2010.
• Wang YH, Li JQ, Shi JF, et al. Depression and Anxiety in Relation to Cancer Incidence and Mortality: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Cohort Studies. Molecular Psychiatry . November 2019.
• Depression. World Health Organization . September 13, 2021.
• Skin conductance. American Psychological Association .

Chatterton by Henry Wallis 1856, Tate Britain. Photo courtesy Wikimedia

Why the long face?

Sadness makes us seem nobler, more elegant, more adult. which is pretty weird, when you think about it.

by Adam Roberts   + BIO

I was listening to Paul Simon’s Hearts and Bones album recently, for the first time in many years – the first time, really, since I was a young teenager. I bought it when it came out in 1983 and listened to it over and over. But hearing it again, and particularly listening to the title track, I was struck by a question: how did I take this back then? What did it mean to me, and why did it mean so much?

So: the title song is a beautifully worn-down response to a relationship at its end, a mix of nostalgic glimpses of happier times and a weary, bruised sense of life in the aftermath of some cathartic break-up. Listening to it as a young teenager, still a virgin and almost wholly inexperienced in such emotions, I wonder if I didn’t think this is how I want to feel. I wanted the happiness, but in a retrospective way (because then it’s done and dusted and safe); and I wanted the melancholy because it just seemed so grown-up and sophisticated and suave. I wanted, as an old joke has it, to skip the marriage and go straight to the divorce. After all – and I am hardly the first person to point this out – there is a complex sort of joy in sadness.

But can this be right? Surely what people want is to be happy. Whole philosophies (I’m looking at you, utilitarianism) rest on the premise that more happiness is always and everywhere a good thing. There is a Global Happiness Index, measuring how happy people are (Denmark tops the league). Bhutan even has a Gross National Happiness Commission, with the power to review government policy decisions and allocate resources.

It’s good to be happy sometimes, of course. Yet the strange truth is that we don’t wish to be happy all the time. If we did, more of us would be happy – it’s not as if we in the affluent West lack tools or means to gratify ourselves. Sometimes we are sad because we have cause, and sometimes we are sad because – consciously or unconsciously – we want to be. Perhaps there’s a sense in which emotional variety is better than monotony, even if the monotone is a happy one. But there’s more to it than that, I think. We value sadness in ways that make happiness look a bit simple-minded.

S adness inspires great art in a way that grinningly eating ice cream in your underpants cannot. In his essay ‘Atrabilious Reflections upon Melancholy’ (1823), Hartley Coleridge (son of Samuel Taylor) praised melancholy as a more refined state of mind than happiness. ‘Melancholy can scarce exist in an undegraded spirit – it cannot exist in a mere animal’ is how he put it:

Melancholy is the only Muse. She is Thalia and Melpomene. She inspired Milton and Michael Angelo, and Swift and Hogarth. All men of genius are melancholy – and none more so than those whose genius is comic. Men (those I mean who are not mere animals) may be divided, according to the kind of their melancholy, into three great classes. Those who seek for the infinite, in contradistinction to the finite – those who seek for the infinite in the finite – and those who seek to degrade the finite by a comparison with the infinite. The first class comprehends philosophers and religionists; the second, poets, lovers, conquerors, misers, stockjobbers, & c.; and the third comprises satirists, comedians, jokers of all kinds, man-haters, and womanhaters, Epicures, and bon-vivants in general.

Melancholy, Coleridge is arguing, is more dignified than happiness. I suspect this is a sense that most people have – that joy is, at root, a kind of idiot pleasure, the idiom of the lobotomy, a balloon just waiting to be popped. Sorrow is somehow more grown-up, because less illusioned. It feels more sincere, more authentic. As she prepared to write Adam Bede (1859), George Eliot copied the following from Thomas Carlyle’s Life of Oliver Cromwell into her notebook: ‘The quantity of sorrow he has, does it not mean withal the quantity of sympathy he has, the quantity of faculty and victory he shall yet have? Our sorrow is the inverted image of our nobleness.’

Because it has some of the colouring of nobility, sadness is also, perhaps, more beautiful than happiness. Philip Larkin’s ‘Money’ (1973) ends:

I listen to money singing. It’s like looking down From long French windows at a provincial town, The slums, the canal, the churches ornate and mad In the evening sun. It is intensely sad.

It Is Intensely Sad would be a pretty good title for a study of Larkin’s verse as a whole. Of course, one reaction to this poem would be to say: ‘Wait just a minute, Phil: you don’t actually mean “it is intensely sad”. You mean “I am intensely sad”. The street, the church, the whole provincial town is doing just fine, thank you, and has no responsibility for your mournfulness, looking down from your long French windows.’ Such a reaction would not diminish Larkin’s achievement, either, for this is indeed the whole point of his poetry: to write, not about the slums, the canal or the church, but about the elegance of melancholy.

Why on earth should melancholy be elegant – or attractive in any other way? On the face of it, it ought to be precisely the sort of thing that evolution breeds out of the race, a prime target for sexual deselection. What female would want to mate with a miserable partner when she could have a happy, smiling one instead? Put like that, of course, the question looks a little ridiculous; as if we’d really prefer to pair off with SpongeBob SquarePants instead of Morrissey. But why? Why would you rather spend time with the latter than the former?

If depression is a foul miasma wreathing the brain, elegant sadness is more like a peacock’s tail, coloured in blue-gentian and rich marine greens

It was Charles Darwin, in The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872), who noted that sadness manifested the same way in all cultures. For something so ubiquitous, it is tempting to venture an evolutionary explanation. Alas, the anthropological and evolutionary work in this area has focused almost entirely upon depression, which is not quite what we are talking about here. I can tell you with rather grim authority that the difference between elegant ennui and the black dog is like the difference between pleasant intoxication and typhus. Many evolutionary theories have been proposed for depression’s adaptive value, but no one has, so far as I am aware, tried to claim that it is enjoyable.

If depression is a foul miasma wreathing the brain, elegant sadness is more like a peacock’s tail, coloured in blue-gentian and rich marine greens. Is it also universal? To this question, anthropology offers no definitive answer. Yet the condition certainly manifests itself in a suggestive array of cultures. It is the sadness to which the Japanese phrase mono no aware gestures (物の哀れ, literally ‘the beautiful sorrow of things’). It is the haunted simplicity of those musical traditions that spread from Africa into the New World as the Blues. It’s the mixture of strength, energy, pity and melancholy that Claude Lévi-Strauss found in Brazil, encapsulated in the title of his book about his travels there Tristes Tropiques (1955). It’s the insight of Vergil’s Aeneas, as he looks back over his troubled life and forward to troubles yet to some: sunt lacrimae rerum ; there are tears in everything, said not mournfully nor hopelessly but as a paradoxical statement about the beauty of the world (Aeneid 1:462).

It would be possible, of course, to construct a ‘cost benefit analysis’ of the sorts of sadness I am describing here. We might suggest that it is a signal that the individual in question has the strength, leisure and sensitivity to indulge in being sad. Saying so invokes what evolutionary scientists call ‘the handicap principle’, a hypothesis first framed by the Israeli evolutionary biologist Amotz Zahavi in 1975. The idea is that extravagant traits such as the highland deer’s massive antlers or the peacock’s tail are useful because they are so ostentatiously expensive, manifestly inconveniencing the owner. They are a way of saying: I’m so strong, my genes are so desirable, that I can afford to schlep about with this manifest – and, by the way, beautiful – disadvantage attached to my body.

Sadness, according to this model, is a kind of conspicuous consumption. It takes more muscles to frown than smile, and maybe that’s the point. It signals ones capacity to squander a resource precisely by squandering it. Any fool can live and be happy. It takes greater strength to live and be sad.

All the same, this analysis loses the most important aspect of this emotion; not that it costs, but that it is beautiful. Happy can be pretty, but some species of sad have access to beauties that happy can never know.

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Farah Abdessamad

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Jason Castro

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Michael Bacon

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Describing Sadness in Creative Writing: 33 Ways to Capture the Blues

By: Author Paul Jenkins

Posted on August 25, 2023

Categories Creative Writing , Writing

Describing sadness in creative writing can be a challenging task for any writer.

Sadness is an emotion that can be felt in different ways, and it’s important to be able to convey it in a way that is authentic and relatable to readers. Whether you’re writing a novel, short story, or even a poem, the ability to describe sadness can make or break a story.

Understanding sadness in writing is essential to creating a believable character or scene. Sadness is a complex emotion that can be caused by a variety of factors, such as loss, disappointment, or loneliness. It’s important to consider the context in which the sadness is occurring, as this can influence the way it is expressed.

By exploring the emotional spectrum of characters and the physical manifestations of sadness, writers can create a more authentic portrayal of the emotion.

In this article, we will explore the different ways to describe sadness in creative writing. We will discuss the emotional spectrum of characters, the physical manifestations of sadness, and the language and dialogue used to express it. We’ll also look at expert views on emotion and provide unique examples of describing sadness.

By the end of this article, you’ll have a better understanding of how to authentically convey sadness in your writing.

Key Takeaways

• Understanding the emotional spectrum of characters is essential to creating a believable portrayal of sadness.
• Physical manifestations of sadness can be used to convey the emotion in a more authentic way.
• Authenticity in describing sadness can be achieved through language and dialogue, as well as expert views on emotion.

33 Ways to Express Sadness in Creative Writing

Let’s start with some concrete examples of sadness metaphors and similes:

Here are 33 ways to express sadness in creative writing:

• A heavy sigh escaped her lips as a tear rolled down her cheek.
• His eyes glistened with unleashed tears that he quickly blinked away.
• Her heart felt like it was being squeezed by a cold, metal fist.
• A profound emptiness opened up inside him, threatening to swallow him whole.
• An avalanche of sorrow crashed over her without warning.
• His spirit sank like a stone in water.
• A dark cloud of grief descended on her.
• Waves of sadness washed over him, pulling him under.
• She felt like she was drowning in an ocean of melancholy.
• His eyes darkened with sadness like a gathering storm.
• Grief enveloped her like a wet blanket, heavy and smothering.
• The light in his eyes dimmed to a flicker behind tears.
• Sadness seeped through her veins like icy slush.
• The corners of his mouth drooped like a wilting flower.
• Her breath came in short, ragged gasps between sobs.
• A profound melancholy oozed from his pores.
• The weight of despair crushed her like a vice.
• A haunted, hollow look glazed over his eyes.
• An invisible hand squeezed her heart, wringing out all joy.
• His soul curdled like spoiled milk.
• A silent scream lodged in her throat.
• He was consumed by a fathomless gloom.
• Sorrow pulsed through her veins with every beat of her heart.
• Grief blanketed him like new-fallen snow, numbing and icy.
• Tears stung her eyes like shards of glass.
• A cold, dark abyss of sadness swallowed him.
• Melancholy seeped from her like rain from a leaky roof.
• His spirit shriveled and sank like a deflating balloon.
• A sick, hollow ache blossomed inside her.
• Rivulets of anguish trickled down his cheeks.
• Sadness smothered her like a poisonous fog.
• Gloom settled on his shoulders like a black shroud.
• Her sorrow poured out in a river of tears.

Understanding Sadness in Writing

Describing sadness in writing can be a challenging task.

Sadness is a complex emotion that can manifest in different ways. It can be expressed through tears, sighs, silence, or even a simple change in posture. As a writer, you need to be able to convey sadness effectively to your readers, while also avoiding cliches and melodrama.

One way to approach describing sadness is to focus on the physical sensations and reactions that accompany it. For example, you might describe the feeling of a lump in your throat, or the tightness in your chest. You could also describe the way your eyes become watery, or the way your hands tremble.

These physical descriptions can help your readers to empathize with your characters and feel the same emotions.

Another important aspect of describing sadness is the tone of your writing. You want to strike a balance between conveying the depth of the emotion and avoiding excessive sentimentality.

One way to achieve this is to use simple, direct language that conveys the emotion without resorting to flowery language or overwrought metaphors.

When describing sadness, it’s also important to consider the context in which it occurs. Sadness can be a response to many different situations, such as loss, disappointment, or rejection. It can also be accompanied by other emotions, such as anger, confusion, or melancholy.

By considering the context and accompanying emotions, you can create a more nuanced and realistic portrayal of sadness in your writing.

Finally, it can be helpful to draw on examples of how other writers have successfully described sadness. By studying the techniques and descriptions used by other writers, you can gain a better understanding of how to effectively convey sadness in your own writing.

In conclusion, describing sadness in writing requires a careful balance of physical descriptions, tone, context, and examples. By focusing on these elements, you can create a more nuanced and effective portrayal of this complex emotion.

Emotional Spectrum in Characters

In creative writing, it’s important to create characters that are multi-dimensional and have a wide range of emotions. When it comes to describing sadness, it’s essential to understand the emotional spectrum of characters and how they respond to different situations.

Characters can experience a variety of emotions, including love, happiness, surprise, anger, fear, nervousness, and more.

Each character has a unique personality that influences their emotional responses. For example, a protagonist might respond to sadness with a broken heart, dismay, or feeling desolate.

On the other hand, a character might respond with anger, contempt, or apathy.

When describing sadness, it’s important to consider the emotional response of the character. For example, a haunted character might respond to sadness with exhaustion or a sense of being drained. A crestfallen character might respond with a sense of defeat or disappointment.

It’s also important to consider how sadness affects the character’s personality. Some characters might become withdrawn or depressed, while others might become more emotional or volatile. When describing sadness, it’s important to show how it affects the character’s behavior and interactions with others.

Overall, the emotional spectrum of characters is an important aspect of creative writing. By understanding how characters respond to different emotions, you can create more realistic and relatable characters. When describing sadness, it’s important to consider the character’s emotional response, personality, and behavior.

Physical Manifestations of Sadness

When you’re feeling sad, it’s not just an emotion that you experience mentally. It can also manifest physically. Here are some physical manifestations of sadness that you can use in your creative writing to make your characters more believable.

Tears are one of the most common physical manifestations of sadness. When you’re feeling sad, your eyes may start to water, and tears may fall down your cheeks. Tears can be used to show that a character is feeling overwhelmed with emotion.

Crying is another physical manifestation of sadness. When you’re feeling sad, you may cry. Crying can be used to show that a character is feeling deeply hurt or upset.

Numbness is a physical sensation that can accompany sadness. When you’re feeling sad, you may feel emotionally numb. This can be used to show that a character is feeling disconnected from their emotions.

Facial Expressions

Facial expressions can also be used to show sadness. When you’re feeling sad, your face may droop, and your eyes may look downcast. This can be used to show that a character is feeling down or depressed.

Gestures can also be used to show sadness. When you’re feeling sad, you may slump your shoulders or hang your head. This can be used to show that a character is feeling defeated or hopeless.

Body Language

Body language can also be used to show sadness. When you’re feeling sad, you may cross your arms or hunch over. This can be used to show that a character is feeling closed off or defensive.

Cold and Heat

Sadness can also affect your body temperature. When you’re feeling sad, you may feel cold or hot. This can be used to show that a character is feeling uncomfortable or out of place.

Sobbing is another physical manifestation of sadness. When you’re feeling sad, you may sob uncontrollably. This can be used to show that a character is feeling overwhelmed with emotion.

Sweating is another physical manifestation of sadness. When you’re feeling sad, you may sweat profusely. This can be used to show that a character is feeling anxious or nervous.

By using these physical manifestations of sadness in your writing, you can make your characters more realistic and relatable. Remember to use them sparingly and only when they are relevant to the story.

Authenticity in Describing Sadness

When it comes to describing sadness in creative writing, authenticity is key. Readers can tell when an author is not being genuine, and it can make the story feel less impactful. In order to authentically describe sadness, it’s important to tap into your own emotions and experiences.

Think about a time when you felt truly sad. What did it feel like? What physical sensations did you experience? How did your thoughts and emotions change? By tapping into your own experiences, you can better convey the emotions of your characters.

It’s also important to remember that sadness can manifest in different ways for different people. Some people may cry, while others may become withdrawn or angry. By understanding the unique ways that sadness can present itself, you can create more authentic and realistic characters.

If you’re struggling to authentically describe sadness, consider talking to a loved one or best friend about their experiences. Hearing firsthand accounts can help you better understand the nuances of the emotion.

Ultimately, the key to authentically describing sadness is to approach it with empathy and understanding. By putting yourself in the shoes of your characters and readers, you can create a powerful and impactful story that resonates with your audience.

Language and Dialogue in Expressing Sadness

When writing about sadness, the language you use can make a big difference in how your readers will perceive the emotions of your characters.

Consider using metaphors and similes to create vivid images that will help your readers connect with the emotions of your characters.

For example, you might describe the sadness as a heavy weight on the character’s chest or a dark cloud hanging over their head.

In addition to using metaphors, you can also use adjectives to describe the character’s emotions. Be careful not to overuse adjectives, as this can detract from the impact of your writing. Instead, choose a few powerful adjectives that will help your readers understand the depth of the character’s sadness.

For example, you might describe the sadness as overwhelming, suffocating, or unbearable.

When it comes to dialogue, it’s important to remember that people don’t always express their emotions directly. In fact, sometimes what isn’t said is just as important as what is said.

Consider using subtext to convey the character’s sadness indirectly. For example, a character might say “I’m fine,” when in reality they are struggling with intense sadness.

Another way to use dialogue to convey sadness is through the use of behaviors. For example, a character might withdraw from social situations, stop eating or sleeping properly, or engage in self-destructive behaviors as a result of their sadness.

By showing these behaviors, you can help your readers understand the depth of the character’s emotions.

Finally, when describing sadness, it’s important to consider the overall mood of the scene. Use sensory details to create a somber atmosphere that will help your readers connect with the emotions of your characters.

For example, you might describe the rain falling heavily outside, the silence of an empty room, or the dim lighting of a funeral home.

Overall, when writing about sadness, it’s important to choose your words carefully and use a variety of techniques to convey the depth of your character’s emotions.

By using metaphors, adjectives, dialogue, behaviors, and sensory details, you can create a powerful and emotionally resonant story that will stay with your readers long after they’ve finished reading.

Expert Views on Emotion

When it comes to writing about emotions, it’s important to have a deep understanding of how they work and how they can be conveyed effectively through writing. Here are some expert views on emotion that can help you write about sadness in a more effective and engaging way.

Dr. Paul Ekman

Dr. Paul Ekman is a renowned psychologist who has spent decades studying emotions and their expressions. According to Dr. Ekman, there are six basic emotions that are universally recognized across cultures: happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, and disgust.

When it comes to writing about sadness, Dr. Ekman suggests focusing on the physical sensations that accompany the emotion.

For example, you might describe the heaviness in your chest, the lump in your throat, or the tears that well up in your eyes. By focusing on these physical sensations, you can help your readers connect with the emotion on a deeper level.

While sadness is often seen as a “negative” emotion, it’s important to remember that all emotions have their place in creative writing. Disgust, for example, can be a powerful tool for conveying a character’s revulsion or aversion to something.

When writing about disgust, it’s important to be specific about what is causing the emotion. For example, you might describe the smell of rotting garbage, the sight of maggots wriggling in a pile of food, or the texture of slimy, raw meat.

By being specific, you can help your readers feel the full force of the emotion and understand why your character is feeling it.

Overall, when it comes to writing about emotions, it’s important to be both specific and authentic. By drawing on your own experiences and using concrete details to describe the physical sensations and causes of emotions, you can create a more engaging and emotionally resonant piece of writing.

Unique Examples of Describing Sadness

When it comes to describing sadness in creative writing, there are many unique ways to convey this emotion to your readers. Here are some examples that can help you create a powerful and moving scene:

• The crying scene : One of the most common ways to show sadness is through tears. However, instead of just saying “she cried,” try to describe the crying scene in detail. For instance, you could describe how her tears fell like raindrops on the floor, or how her sobs shook her body like a violent storm. This will help your readers visualize the scene and feel the character’s pain.
• The socks : Another way to show sadness is through symbolism. For example, you could describe how the character is wearing mismatched socks, which represents how her life is falling apart and nothing seems to fit together anymore. This can be a subtle yet effective way to convey sadness without being too obvious.
• John : If your character is named John, you can use his name to create a sense of melancholy. For example, you could describe how the raindrops fell on John’s shoulders, weighing him down like the burdens of his life. This can be a creative way to convey sadness while also adding depth to your character.

Remember, when describing sadness in creative writing, it’s important to be specific and use vivid language. This will help your readers connect with your character on a deeper level and feel their pain.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are some effective ways to describe a person’s sadness without using the word ‘sad’.

When describing sadness, it’s important to avoid using the word “sad” as it can come across as cliché and lackluster. Instead, try using more descriptive words that evoke a sense of sadness in the reader. For example, you could use words like “heartbroken,” “bereft,” “devastated,” “despondent,” or “forlorn.” These words help to create a more vivid and emotional description of sadness that readers can connect with.

How can you describe the physical manifestations of sadness on a person’s face?

When describing the physical manifestations of sadness on a person’s face, it’s important to pay attention to the small details. For example, you could describe the way their eyes become red and swollen from crying, or how their mouth trembles as they try to hold back tears. You could also describe the way their shoulders slump or how they withdraw into themselves. By focusing on these small but telling details, you can create a more realistic and relatable portrayal of sadness.

What are some examples of using metaphor and simile to convey sadness in creative writing?

Metaphors and similes can be powerful tools for conveying sadness in creative writing. For example, you could compare a person’s sadness to a heavy weight that they’re carrying on their shoulders, or to a storm cloud that follows them wherever they go. You could also use metaphors and similes to describe the way sadness feels, such as a “gnawing ache” in the pit of their stomach or a “cold, empty void” inside their chest.

How can you effectively convey the emotional weight of sadness through dialogue?

When writing dialogue for a character who is experiencing sadness, it’s important to focus on the emotions and feelings that they’re experiencing. Use short, simple sentences to convey the character’s sadness, and avoid using overly complex language or metaphors. You could also use pauses and silences to create a sense of emotional weight and tension in the scene.

What are some techniques for describing a character’s inner sadness in a way that is relatable to the reader?

One effective technique for describing a character’s inner sadness is to focus on their thoughts and feelings. Use introspection to delve into the character’s emotions and describe how they’re feeling in a way that is relatable to the reader. You could also use flashbacks or memories to show why the character is feeling sad, and how it’s affecting their current actions and decisions.

How can you use sensory language to create a vivid portrayal of sadness in a poem or story?

Sensory language is an effective way to create a vivid portrayal of sadness in a poem or story. Use descriptive words that evoke the senses, such as the smell of rain on a sad day or the sound of a distant train whistle. You could also use sensory language to describe the physical sensations of sadness, such as the weight of a heavy heart or the taste of tears on the tongue. By using sensory language, you can create a more immersive and emotional reading experience for your audience.

The Important Difference Between Sadness and Depression

... and why so many get it wrong..

Posted October 2, 2015 | Reviewed by Lybi Ma

• What Is Depression?
• Find a therapist to overcome depression
• Sadness is usually triggered by a difficult event, whereas depression is an abnormal emotional state.
• When a person is depressed, they feel sad about everything. It does not require a trigger.
• Diagnosis and treatment for depression require the counsel of a trained mental health professional.

In my years of private practice, I’ve met many people struggling with depression who thought they were merely sad. I’ve also met many people who were extremely sad and worried they might be depressed. Because we associate depression with its primary symptom of pervasive sadness, many of us struggle to tell the difference between these two common psychological states.

This is a huge problem.

Our confusion can lead us to neglect a serious condition that requires treatment (depression) or, on the other end of the spectrum, overreact to a normative emotional state (sadness). And here's why the distinction is crucial: If we (or a loved one) are depressed, it has huge implications for our long-term mental health, physical health, and longevity.

The Difference Between Sadness and Depression

Sadness is a normal human emotion . We’ve all experienced it and we all will again. Sadness is usually triggered by a difficult, hurtful, challenging, or disappointing event, experience, or situation. In other words, we tend to feel sad about something . This also means that when that something changes, when our emotional hurt fades, when we’ve adjusted or gotten over the loss or disappointment, our sadness remits.

Depression is an abnormal emotional state, a mental illness that affects our thinking, emotions, perceptions, and behaviors in pervasive and chronic ways. When we’re depressed we feel sad about everything . Depression does not necessarily require a difficult event or situation, a loss, or a change of circumstance as a trigger. In fact, it often occurs in the absence of any such triggers. People’s lives on paper might be totally fine—they would even admit this is true—and yet they still feel horrible.

Depression colors all aspects of our lives, making everything less enjoyable, less interesting, less important, less lovable, and less worthwhile. Depression saps our energy, motivation , and ability to experience joy, pleasure, excitement, anticipation, satisfaction, connection, and meaning. All your thresholds tend to be lower. You’re more impatient, quicker to get angry or frustrated, quicker to break down, and it takes you longer to bounce back from everything.

In my TED talk , I discussed one of the more unfortunate consequences of this confusion: How people struggling with depression are often expected to "snap out of it," and are told "it’s all in your head," or "choose to be happy!" Such sentiments reflect a deep misunderstanding of depression. It only makes the person with depression feel worse.

The True Symptoms of Depression

To be diagnosed with depression, people need to have at least five of the following symptoms, for a continual duration of at least two weeks. Be advised: The severity of these symptoms must also be considered, so please use these only as a guideline and see a mental health professional for a conclusive diagnosis.

• A depressed or irritable mood most of the time.
• A loss or decrease of pleasure or interest in most activities, including ones that had been interesting or pleasurable previously.
• Significant changes in weight or appetite .
• Disturbances in falling asleep or sleeping too much.
• Feeling slowed down in your movements or restless most days.
• Feeling tired, sluggish, and having low energy most days.
• Having feelings of worthless or excessive guilt most days.
• Experiencing problems with thinking, focus, concentration , creativity , and the ability to make decisions most days.
• Having thoughts of dying or suicide .

If you think you or a loved one might be depressed, it is important to seek the counsel of a trained mental health professional for diagnosis and treatment. Depression is an extremely common mental illness and there are many treatments that benefit most people.

To find a therapist, please visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory .

Copyright 2015 Guy Winch

LinkedIn Image Credit: David Prado Perucha/Shutterstock

Guy Winch, Ph.D. , is a licensed psychologist and author of Emotional First Aid: Healing Rejection, Guilt, Failure, and Other Everyday Hurts.

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Home » Home » Paragraph » Paragraph On Sadness (100, 200, 300, & 500 Words)

Paragraph On Sadness (100, 200, 300, & 500 Words)

Paragraph on sadness 100 words, paragraph on sadness 200 words, paragraph on sadness 300 words, paragraph on sadness 500 words, understanding sadness, the purpose of sadness, coping with sadness.

• Allow yourself to feel: Suppressing emotions can be detrimental to our mental and physical well-being. It is crucial to give yourself permission to feel sad and acknowledge your emotions without judgment.
• Express your emotions: Find healthy ways to express your sadness, such as writing in a journal, talking to a trusted friend, or participating in creative activities like painting or playing music.
• Practice self-care: Engage in activities that bring you joy and comfort. This could involve taking a relaxing bath, going for a walk in nature, or engaging in a hobby that you enjoy. Self-care helps in restoring your emotional balance.
• Seek support: Reach out to friends, family, or a professional therapist who can provide a listening ear and guidance during difficult times. Sharing your feelings with others can help alleviate the burden and provide a fresh perspective.
• Engage in positive thinking: While it may be challenging, try to focus on the positive aspects of your life. Practice gratitude by acknowledging the things you are grateful for, even in the midst of sadness.
• Take care of your physical health: Exercise regularly, maintain a balanced diet, and get enough sleep. Physical well-being has a significant impact on our emotional state.

The Importance of Emotional Balance

• Sadness is a complex and deeply human emotion characterized by unhappiness or sorrow, often accompanied by tears, a heavy heart, and a sense of gloom.
• Sadness can be triggered by various factors such as loss, disappointment, loneliness, or failure. It can be a response to challenging life events and circumstances.
• Despite its negative connotation, sadness serves a purpose in our lives. It acts as a signal that something is not right or that we have encountered a significant loss. It allows us to reflect, process the situation, and seek support.
• To cope with sadness, it is important to allow yourself to feel without judgment, express your emotions through writing or talking to others, practice self-care activities that bring you joy, and seek support from friends, family, or a professional therapist.

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Unpacking the wild twists, excessive vomit in ‘Triangle of Sadness’: ‘Maybe it was too much’

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Spoiler alert: The following interview addresses plot twists and details of “Triangle of Sadness,” including the ending.

When Swedish filmmaker Ruben Östlund won the top prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival for “Triangle of Sadness,” it put him in the rarefied class of two-time Palme d’Or winners. The prestigious group also includes Francis Ford Coppola, Michael Haneke, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, Emir Kusturica, Shohei Imamura, Bille August, Alf Sjöberg and Ken Loach.

But none of those titans of international cinema ever won for a film with an outrageously extended sequence of passengers aboard a luxury yacht violently vomiting and soiling themselves during a storm at sea. Östlund, 48, prides himself on upending the traditions of upscale art cinema, creating biting social satires in his previous films, “Force Majeure” and the Palme d’Or-winning “The Square,” with surgical precision. Taken together, they compose an informal trilogy on privilege and contemporary male anxiety. But besides being trenchant examinations of modern life, his movies are also very fun.

In “Triangle of Sadness” — the title refers to the area at the top of the nose and between the eyebrows, often fixed with Botox — male model Carl (Harris Dickinson), insecure about the financial success of his model/influencer girlfriend, Yaya (Charlbi Dean), accompanies her aboard a luxury yacht with a drunken Marxist captain (Woody Harrelson). When a violent storm causes all the guests to become extremely seasick and the ship itself to crash, a group of survivors land on a seemingly deserted island. That’s where Abigail (Dolly de Leon), a cleaning woman from the ship, suddenly assumes an increasingly tyrannical leadership position thanks to her practical skills, such as knowing how to start a fire.

Following the film’s Cannes success, unexpected tragedy struck in August when the South African-born Dean died at age 32 in New York City from a sudden illness. Östlund addressed paying tribute to Dean as he sat for an interview at the recent Toronto International Film Festival in the kind of luxury hotel restaurant his movies might very well upbraid.

I can’t even imagine how difficult it must be to promote the film following the death of Charlbi Dean. The timing of that must have come as such a shock.

I was in contact with her a few days before, and all of us, the ensemble, were planning to go together to Toronto and to the different premieres. And basically I was woken up by a text ... first you didn’t believe it was a hundred-percent true, and it took many hours before I could confirm [it was]. Of course then the most sad thing is Charlbi was a great colleague. She was a team player, she was lifting up everybody around her, and you could really feel that on set. She was looking forward so much for the premiere of the film in the States or in Canada. And we had a great time in Cannes. It was like a feeling of this was her time, and maybe a new direction of her career.

It’s always a tragedy when someone is young and dies, it came very sudden and it’s going to feel a little empty when she’s not there next to us. For me, it’s important to go into this work in the same way I would have done if she was next to me, because it’s also a way for me to pay tribute to her, to her work and to her legacy. But I definitely think that the people in the cast felt it was a little bit hard to talk about the film.

And as a way to start talking about the movie, can you discuss the structure? What made you want to have the three distinct sections to the movie — opening with Carl and Yaya, moving onto the yacht and then on the island?

I knew from the beginning that I wanted the film to be about beauty as a currency. This came out of discussions I had with my wife, she’s a fashion photographer, and she had told me so many interesting stories about how the models often come from very different parts of society. All of a sudden they are pushed up in society, and they get used to a certain kind of lifestyle and go on these trips everywhere. But the career is very, very short, so what should they do afterwards? Should they go back to being a car mechanic, like the inspiration for the character of Carl — that model worked as a car mechanic, and all of a sudden he became one of the best-paid models in the world. There’s something absurd with this, to rely on your beauty as currency.

That was the starting point of the idea [and then the models] go to a luxury yacht, where many of these people maybe don’t have access to that world if it wasn’t because of their currency. And then go to the third part of the desert island, where we take away all the previous hierarchies and we start from the bottom and know-how becomes the most important thing.

I thought that the deserted island was a great way of commenting on our times, where very few of us actually have the basic skill of how to survive [and] are so used to a certain kind of lifestyle. What happens when we take that away?

A TikTok contretemps, and a delicious eat-the-rich satire, at Cannes

Michel Hazanavicius’ “Final Cut” and George Miller’s “Three Thousand Years of Longing” are among the noteworthy Cannes Film Festival premieres.

May 22, 2022

With the yacht sequence in particular, was it important that it not be so easy to reduce the film to just “rich people are awful?” Did you want it to be somehow more complicated?

Yes, definitely. But I think one thing when it comes to my films, I’m kind of mean to all of the characters. I’m not nicer to the poor than I am to the rich, I’m kind of mean to everyone. And for me, I think the reason is because I’m interested in when we are failing and when we are not succeeding in being good humans. I’m not so interested in when we succeed. I’m interested in failing as sociology — we are not pointing our fingers on the individual, we’re actually pointing fingers on the context, the set-up that can create our behavior.

For me, it would be completely not interesting to show a good person succeeding in being good. We already have all these stories doing that. I want to add something ... and I want to corner the characters. That is maybe better than saying being mean or harsh. I want to corner them and put them up to deal with dilemmas: “You have two options, none of them are easy. How do you deal with it?”

I heard something interesting when I did the research of the yachts. They had a problem with the jacuzzi that they had in the master bedroom, because very often the man that stayed in the master bedroom wanted to fill up the jacuzzi with champagne. So they filled it up with champagne every time they were asked for this, but it happened quite often. They had enough when one of the passengers wanted to fill it up with champagne and goldfish. They’re like, “Maybe we have to move the jacuzzi from the master bedroom.” I thought it was fantastic.

They look at it from a behavioristic point of view. It just creates bad things with these passengers. They’re so used to asking for whatever they want. And we are not allowed to say no, so maybe we should move the master jacuzzi.

I have to ask about the vomiting sequence, when everyone on the yacht becomes graphically sick. Obviously, the extremity of it is part of the point, but how did you decide on the right amount of too much?

From the beginning, I decided that I wanted to push it very far, so the audience would feel, “Please save them. They have had enough.” It’s very hard to know how far you have pushed it because you get so used to the material yourself. So when I was sitting and editing it, I said, “This is nothing,” because I’ve watched it a hundred times. And then when we had the first screening of the film, I realized, “Oh s—, maybe I overdid it.” Maybe I should have been a little bit more careful. Maybe it should have been a little bit less. Maybe it was too much in the end. I apologized to the audience. But it was too late to recut the film.

It’s about the dynamic of the whole film, of course. I love to push my scenes. There’s so many movies that I watch where you have a great experience when you watch the film, but then after that I don’t really remember it. For me, I really want to leave a mark. I want people to know, “Oh my God, this is pushing it further than I could expect.” The first version of the film was 3 hours and 45 minutes, basically with the same scenes, so the scenes were much, much longer. And then I slowly sculpt it down ... but the throw-ups, that took me half a year to edit.

In ‘Triangle of Sadness,’ strained satire, and vomit, on the high seas

Ruben Östlund’s Palme d’Or-winning social satire, ‘Triangle of Sadness,’ skewers the obvious amid a lot of puke.

Oct. 6, 2022

Now I hope you don’t mind talking a little about the ending. The film ends with a cliffhanger, whether one character will kill another, sending them back to civilization or not. What was it that made you want to leave audiences as you do?

I don’t think it is important if she kills her or not. I think the important part is can we identify with the possibility of her to do it? Then if she does it or not, okay, that can randomly play out in two different ways. And I think also that I had an idea that I wanted half of the audience to want her to kill and half of the audience to say, ‘No, don’t do it.’ So for me, it’s not interesting what she does, but that it’s possible for her to kill her.

The dilemma of the ending seems like a great distillation of your filmmaking and the sort of moral questions that you like to ask of audiences.

Yes, definitely. Every time I watch something that I have to reflect myself on how I should relate to a situation, then I get interested. And then I also start to ask questions. Basically, all my films try to confront myself with situations that I think are hard to handle.

You are now in extremely rarified company to have won the Palme d’Or at Cannes twice. What was the experience like?

To win it once was the feeling of like, “Okay, wow, I’m one of the lucky ones that actually get to experience this.” We all know how hard it is to make a film that is good enough to go into competition, and when you are in competition, then to fight with the best films in order to get a prize. So I was very lucky.

The next time when we were sitting in the award ceremony and we see prize after prize go to other films — finally it’s only one prize left, and I started to feel this emptiness because I started to figure out we are going to win the Palme d’Or again. I’m starting to feel, “Do I really want to go through this again?” It’s a lot of work, but at the same time, like, wow, am I now in the league with Coppola and Michael Haneke and the Dardennes and it feels so normal, but I thought it would feel special? It’s scary how normal it feels.

And one thing with the second Palme — I want to be humble, but you know, it is a possibility now to win a third Palme. No one has done that before. I don’t want to be arrogant, but it actually is a possibility.

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Sadness essay

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Synonyms of sadness

• as in melancholy
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Thesaurus Definition of sadness

Synonyms & Similar Words

• sorrowfulness
• mournfulness
• unhappiness
• desperation
• heartsickness
• joylessness
• forlornness
• despondence
• despondency
• miserableness
• blue devils
• downheartedness
• melancholia
• disconsolateness
• self - pity
• dispiritedness
• discouragement
• dolefulness
• hopelessness
• wretchedness
• disheartenment
• self - despair

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

• exhilaration
• intoxication
• lightheartedness
• cheerfulness
• hopefulness
• blissfulness
• contentment
• satisfaction
• mirthfulness
• gleefulness
• rapturousness
• gladsomeness
• contentedness
• gratification

Thesaurus Entries Near sadness

Cite this entry.

“Sadness.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus , Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/sadness. Accessed 11 May. 2024.

More from Merriam-Webster on sadness

Nglish: Translation of sadness for Spanish Speakers

Britannica English: Translation of sadness for Arabic Speakers

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