# Time: Both a remedy and a poison for emotions

- URL: https://alisanburak.com/en/zaman-duygularin-hem-ilaci-hem-zehri
- Language: en
- Last updated: 2026-08-15
- Page title: Time: Both a remedy and a poison for emotions | Assoc. Prof. Dr. Alişan Burak Yaşar

> Time is both a remedy and a poison for emotions. You determine which it will be. Negative emotions fade faster over time — this is called the “fading affec

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# Time: Both a remedy and a poison for emotions

May 27, 2026Recent Articles

Time is both a remedy and a poison for emotions. You determine which it will be.

Negative emotions fade faster over time — this is called the “fading affect bias,” a pattern of neuroregulation demonstrated in 2,400 autobiographical memories across 10 different cultures. At the same time, as Gilbert and his team have shown, the brain’s psychological immune system helps us recover much faster than we expect. The pain that seems unbearable today will not remain as intense.

But time has another side. Hedonic adaptation works quietly: the things we have spent years striving for begin to seem less significant once we attain them. Justified anger, something that needs to be said, a meaningful opportunity — once they fade, they may never return. Loewenstein’s research is also clear: when we are calm, we cannot anticipate how we will feel in turmoil; when we are in turmoil, we cannot believe we will calm down. The empathy gap between these two states is the source of many decisions we later regret.

Clinical wisdom means knowing when to trust time and when not to. Postpone irreversible decisions made in the heat of the moment for 72 hours. Rekindle a faded sense of value through deliberate appreciation and variety. Research on memory reconsolidation shows that consciously introducing a positive meaning while recalling a negative memory can reconstruct that memory with a positive emotional tone, even two months later. In other words, you can harness time’s power over the past actively rather than passively.

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