Therapist suggests that rewatching comfort TV like Gilmore Girls is good for your health.
For many TV fanatics, “Gilmore Girls” is a seasonal rewatch. When the weather cools down and the leaves start to change, you’ll find yourself wishing for the cozy streets of Stars Hollow. If you close your eyes, you can faintly hear Carol King’s voice belting out “Where You Lead,” the show’s theme song.
There’s no shame in rewatching a beloved show, but if you need an excuse, we’ve got one backed by science: rewatching comfort television could be therapeutic.
What Is Comfort TV?
In a 2022 poll of 2000 Americans from OnePoll, 55% of participants admitted to watching comfort TV and movies as a way to distract themselves from stress. In comparison, only 42% enjoyed baths and only 33% participated in yoga as alternative forms of stress relief.
So, what is it? Comfort television is exactly what it sounds like. It’s any show that brings relaxation and tension release to the watcher. While comfort is really in the eye of the beholder, there are some themes that tend to show up in comfort television: lovable-but-flawed characters, memorable settings, and resolvable plot lines.
The Science
Psychotherapist Jill Lewis says the familiarity of rewatching TV shows is soothing. “There’s actually a lot of safety in the sense that people already know that’s going to happen,” says Lewis to the New York Post. When watchers know the ending, there’s less work involved. They can half-listen and still benefit from the story, whereas thriller and crime shows require active listening, which can work up the nervous system. The idea is simple: When the show feels calm, our bodies can be calm.
The Gilmore Girls Effect
“Gilmore Girls” created by Amy Sherman-Palladino, ran from 2000 to 2007. Since then, it’s reached rerun acclaim. In 2023, it was in Nielsen’s top 10 rewatched shows across streaming platforms and clocked over 500 million hours of watch time on Netflix alone.
With its quick-witted banter and pop culture allusions, “Gilmore Girls” has a nostalgia factor that helps it stand the test of time. The show is also oh-so-cozy. No episode goes unfinished without an extra-large cup of coffee for Lorelai and her daughter, Rory, from the small-town diner, Luke’s.
The show’s main setting, Stars Hollow, is everything you could hope for in a town — complete with festivals for every holiday and all four seasons of gorgeous weather. In an interview with the New York Times, show writer John Stephens shared, “The world can be a terrifying place, but in Stars Hollow, you can go there and the world is still this wonderful, lovely place.”
How Much Is Too Much?
It’s important to note that while taking a break to watch your favorite TV show is healthy, there are limits to how much screen time you should be putting in. Experts suggest that a healthy amount of screen time for adults is less than two hours per day — that’s a little under 2 episodes of “Gilmore Girls.”
Taking care of yourself and your family comes first, and if your tele-visits to Stars Hollow are interfering, it may be time to take a break. Lewis says, “If someone is not experiencing life because they’re binge-watching TV, it’s too much,” but she also believes “If you come home and watch two episodes but you feed yourself dinner and you take a shower and you take care of your kids and you go to bed in a normal time, I think there’s nothing wrong with that.”
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Carley Bishop
Carley is an editorial lifestyle writer and aspiring novelist. She is based in North Carolina where she resides with her husband and their puppy, Daisy, and is a proud graduate of University of South Carolina. Carley is a lifelong bookworm who enjoys reading everything from the classics to modern romances. When she's not reading or writing, she enjoys traveling, getting outside and trying new recipes at home.
