How Stress Affects the Mind During the Holiday Season

Holiday Fever

The holiday season is stressful for everyone, especially given how much can often be at stake. For young lovers, it’s often the first time you introduce a new significant other to the family; for parents, it’s juggling keeping the extended family happy while trying to put together a wonderful and memorable holiday season. Unfortunately, the holiday season’s happiness can be quite a double-edged sword; for many people, the holidays hold bad memories or just a reminder of loneliness, and as such, rates of depression and substance abuse spike during the holiday season. Dr. KaNisha Hall attests to this in her practice as a mental wellness doctor.

The stress of the holidays can be more than a substantial hurdle for anyone to cross over. As aforementioned, the strain of the holidays can be just as prominent as the happy times that can be associated with the holiday time of year. It’s this time of year that it is pertinent to seek help for these struggles and not to let the stress overwhelm you. Dr. Hall herself offers to counsel for these struggles, which can be found more in-depth on her website as well as on her blog posts.

Depression reaches a fever pitch this time of year, and countless individuals suffer through it without seeking help, which only serves to cause more problems. With the compounding stress that comes with holidays, it’s not uncommon for people with existing depression or addiction to flare up and make them all the more intense. Things like family or lack thereof can be especially trying during the holidays. It is a crucial stressor for both people who have dysfunctional family relationships or those without family during times dedicated to the thankfulness for family.

Stress comes from all around us, but we have more active outlets than usual during the holidays, from which we receive pressure. Shopping, family, cooking, events, anything imaginable related to the holiday season can agitate feelings of anxiety, depression, and in more extreme cases, can only serve to worsen addiction and substance abuse as the coping mechanism of choice. Problems like this can become detrimental, and managing them is a difficult feat, and as such, seeking counseling is the best way to help manage stress and other feelings of doubt throughout the holidays. 

The reduction of stress is an essential part of the holidays; Dr. Hall helps to teach individuals about stress and how to cope with it and create preventative wellness routines that can help mitigate future stress and lead to an overall healthier life. The holidays are tough, but they’re well worth it if you can learn how to manage your stress and take better care of yourself to enjoy the real worthwhile meaning of the holiday season. Her website offers a wealth of information and booking opportunities to reach out and talk to a specialist like her to help you through the holidays so you can focus on enjoying what makes the holidays special.