Get Over It Day

What the day is

Get Over It Day is observed on March 9. Telling somebody to get over it is famously useless advice, and the research on why people cannot is more helpful than the instruction.

Origin and background

Psychologists distinguish two things that look identical from outside. Brooding involves repeatedly asking why something happened and why you feel as you do, which reliably predicts worse mood and, over time, depression. Reflective processing involves examining what occurred and what could be done, and does not carry the same cost. Both involve thinking hard about a painful event; only one of them goes anywhere.

The practical version of the distinction is the question. Why did this happen to me tends to generate more questions and no answers, because the honest reply is usually a tangle of causes outside your control. What can I do now, or what would I tell someone in this position, produces something actionable.

That second phrasing points at a genuinely odd finding. People reason more wisely about other people's problems than their own, a gap sometimes called Solomon's paradox, and the effect can be partly closed by grammar. Thinking about your own situation in the second or third person, using your own name rather than I, has been shown in experiments to improve emotional regulation and lead to more balanced reasoning. It creates the distance that makes other people's problems tractable.

Writing helps for related reasons. Studies on expressive writing find that writing about a difficult experience across several sessions is associated with improvements in wellbeing, apparently because constructing a narrative imposes a structure that circling thoughts never reach.

None of which means forcing it. The instruction to get over something on a schedule is the part of the day worth ignoring.

How to take part

• Swap why did this happen for what can I do about it.
• Talk to yourself by name, which feels ridiculous and works.
• Write it down properly rather than turning it over silently.
• Ask what you would advise a friend in the same position.
• Do not rush somebody else through their own timeline.