Sadness often goes hand-in-hand with events of greater impact, such as death or accidents, explained the researchers.⁠ And people therefore need more time to mull over and cope with what happened to comprehend it fully.⁠ To test the length and effect of emotions, Philippe Verduyn and Saskia Lavrijsen from the University of Leuven in Belgium asked 233 students to recollect recent emotional episodes and report their duration.⁠ The participants also had to answer questions about the strategies they used to cope with these emotions. ⁠ ⁠ _____⁠ ⁠ Out of a set of 27 emotions, sadness lasted the longest, whereas shame, surprise, fear, disgust, boredom, being touched, irritated, or feeling relief were over much faster.⁠ Typically, it took 120 hours to stop feeling sad, but just 30 minutes to get over feelings of disgust and shame. ⁠ Hatred lasted for 60 hours, followed by joy for 35 hours. ⁠ ⁠ Boredom was also listed among the shorter emotions, and Professor Verduyn and Professor Lavrijsen cla...