This is why your favorite TV shows are so comforting to watch, according to experts

• From "Friends" to "Gilmore Girls," there's a reason we prefer to watch the same shows over and over.
• Insider spoke with experts about why the TV shows we rewatch are so comforting to us.
• Watching our favorite TV shows can be a form of escapism and can help us process our own emotions.

Whether it's proudly proclaiming Team Jess, Logan, or Dean, debating whether Ross and Rachel were really on a break, or humming to the happy-go-lucky theme of "The Office," there's nothing quite like coming back — time and time again — to a show you love.

But there's a reason you're still hooked on "Suits" years after its finale aired. And it's not just because you like the characters.

After the pandemic corralled us indoors, comfort shows became a coping mechanism for some of us. Nielsen Insights reports "Friends," which was one of the most rewatched shows in 2020, acquired over 96 billion minutes viewed over the course of the year, a 30% increase compared to 2019.

Insider spoke to Raffaello Antonino, a counseling psychologist and founder of Therapy Central, and C.M. Conway, an independent filmmaker and multimedia storytelling consultant, about why we watch the same TV shows repeatedly.

We find comfort in familiarity

You might watch Pam and Jim's wedding when you're sad, or turn to the rag-tag Dunphy family when your stomach is in knots. That's because, in some situations, TV can help ease our anxiety.

When CableTV.com surveyed 1,000 Americans, it found 87% of respondents had a comfort TV show, and three in five of those respondents were anxious, it reported in March.

Antonino said anxiety is underpinned by a fear of uncertainty — thus, the need for predictability and familiarity can make us feel safe.

"There is a very simple psychological concept which is that of the mere-exposure effect, which is as simple as you like what you know," he said. "It's 'I watch "Friends: for the 12th time, even though I know every punchline and every joke because the familiarity feels comforting.' That is very, very important."

TV shows can help you make sense of your own experience

TV shows can help us cope with our own experiences.

"When we see a character surmounting an obstacle, we say, 'Well, how can I maybe superimpose that into my life and surmount this obstacle in my daily life?'" Conway said.

Have you ever wondered why you feel better watching Rory move on from Jess after you've been through your own break-up? 

"[TV shows] can be a way for us to vicariously live through characters and then really arrive at the emotional end that they arrive to in the [show]," she said.

Watching the same TV shows can be a form of escapism

Media-induced nostalgia is caused by remembering or re-experiencing media from the past, according to a 2018 study by researchers at the University of Cologne and the University of Mannheim. It also influences your psychological well-being.

"'Stranger Things' is an excellent example where the producers leveraged this nostalgia effect linked with the '80s and '90s that immediately triggers a cascade of connections in our mind that brings us back to a time that perhaps was simpler," Antonino said.

This escapism was especially important as the pandemic halted physical connections.

"As we were seeing current events in the world, during the pandemic especially, the world felt a little upended for a lot of people. A lot of people were on lockdown for quite a while, so binge-watching became an activity that could be a way to feel better or to escape," Conway said.

According to a 2020 Statista survey, 60% of respondents aged 13 to 17 years old and 69% of adults aged 18 to 29 said they frequently binge-watched TV shows or movies in a series in one sitting. 

TV shows can act as an outlet for our emotions

With emotions like anxiety, sadness, or anger, one of the ways that we can regulate that emotion is through an external outlet, like a TV show, according to Antonino.

"The TV show becomes a safe space where we canalize the energy it elicits that has been kept compressed within us into processing that emotion through the experience of watching the story, the TV show, or a particular character that we are attached to," Antonino said.

He said it could even be "potentially really helpful for someone's mental health."

Conway added, "We, as a people, as a society, like knowing it's all going to work out in the end. And really good comfort television shows bring us along a journey that allows us to emotionally experience something safely along with the feeling of, 'It's all going to be OK.'"