As the year comes to an end, the holiday season is officially here! It is one of the busiest and most popular times of the year. From Thanksgiving to Christmas, the holidays are a time to get together with friends and family to celebrate everything you’re most thankful for in life. However, the busyness and stress of the holidays impact your mental health in ways you might not have thought about before.
The holidays involve gatherings with friends and family, gift-giving, cooking and baking, traveling long distances, and so much more. While this time is enjoyable for many, all of the stress from the holidays can make mental health struggles like depression and anxiety much worse.
The Holiday Blues are a real issue that affects countless people from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day. A host of factors play into how holidays impact your mental health over this period. When you understand how the holidays affect you, you can take the right steps to prioritize your mental health during the holidays. While the holidays are a time for love, joy, and thankfulness, they can be quite stressful for many people. Rates of depression, anxiety, and stress rise over these few months.
The holidays are full of high expectations. People expect a lot from their friends and family, whether from the gifts they give or the reaction to food. In many cases, people feel extreme loneliness. They see others spending time with the ones they love, but they don’t have a large gathering to go to themselves. These expectations put a great deal of stress on everyone.
The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) conducted a survey recently that to measure the effect the holidays had on people’s mental health. Their results discovered:
24% of people living with a mental illness found that the holidays made their symptoms “a lot worse.”
40% of people living with a mental illness found that the holidays made their symptoms “somewhat worse.”
Roughly 755 respondents reported that the holidays added to them feeling sad or dissatisfied.
68% felt financially stressed.
66% felt lonely.
63% experienced too much pressure.
57% felt there were unreal expectations.
55% found themselves remembering happier times in the past, comparing them with their present.
Nearly half could not be with their loved ones.
In most cases, these symptoms are temporary, especially for those who don’t live with a mental illness. However, if you don’t look after your mental health, they can develop into clinical anxiety or depression. If your symptoms last over two weeks, contact a mental health specialist as soon as possible.
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