Christmas 2017: More People Plunge into Anxiety and Depression During the Holidays, Experts Claim
While Christmastime is the season to be jolly, many people plunge into depression, too, during the holidays, experts claim.
As the song goes, Christmastime is the most wonderful time of the year. However, according to experts, many people also become depressed during the season, a condition otherwise known as Holidays Blues. In fact, according to a report of the Murfreesboro, Tennessee police, an 18-year-old boy almost had planned of not only killing himself last week but also admitted to have intended committing mass shootings, too.
Reportedly, the unnamed boy tried to killed himself with the use of an extension cord and later admitted to the police that he had thought of killing people randomly using a .22 rifle, similar to the Las Vegas mass shooting incident last October, which is considered to be the worst case of mass shooting incident in the USA.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
While it remains unclear how the police averted the boy's suicide attempt, the would-have-been suicide victim was brought to St. Thomas Rutherford Hospital for help.
"Every life is valuable, so we would rather spend our time helping someone get help than having to notify a family member of the loss of a loved one," said Murfreesboro police assistant spokesperson Ofc. Amy Norville.
Although there is no denying that some of the fondest memories people have to happen during the holidays, they are also causing a great deal of stress to many people. According to reports, 64 percent of people confess that their mental stress level increases during the holidays.
"(The holidays are) a little bit of mass chaos, there's a lot of people, there's a lot of emotion, there's a lot of anxiety, and that's the time where it's the most crucial to be able to not just get help when you need it," explained psychiatrist Monika Roots, Vice President of Health Services and Senior Medical Director of Behavioral Health at Teladoc, in an interview with Bustle.
However, according to Roots, people are not powerless when they find themselves depressed during the holidays. Apart from encouraging them to proactively maintain their daily routine, Roots also said that getting enough sleep is one key way to de-stress as it is the building blocks of a person's mental health and well-being.
"If we can't sleep, then we start to eat more, we can't focus, we say things we maybe don't mean, the chaos seems more, and the anxiety goes way up," Roots said.
