The Holiday Blues - Why am I feeling like Charlie Brown?

I found a really cool article online on the Holiday Blues, so I am going to dedicate a couple of posts to sharing some excerpts from this article....The following excerpt talks about some reasons why people experience Holiday Blues.


source: Good Grief! I’m Having a Charlie Brown Xmas: How to Deal with the Holiday Blues by Kirsti A. Dyer, MD, MS, FAAETS

"People often have different experiences of the holidays. For many, it is a time of joy, happiness, peace on earth, good will, celebrating with family and friends, and hope for the future. But for others, the holiday season can be a difficult time, a time of sadness and loneliness, a time of self evaluation and reflecting on past accomplishments and failures, and a time of anxiety about the future year. During this time of year there is a high potential for psychological, physical and financial stress. As a result, the holidays can leave millions of people feeling blue, not happy or merry. The holiday blues can affect men and women of all ages with intense and unsettling feelings ranging from mild sadness to severe clinical depression (...)

The Holiday Blues tend to be short-lived lasting only a few days to a few weeks around the holiday season. The emotions—sadness, loneliness, depression, anxiety—usually subside after the holidays once a daily routine is resumed. However, if the symptoms of hopelessness and depression last for more than two weeks, persist past the holidays, or intensify during the season, a simple case of the blues may in reality be a serious case of depression (...)

A person experiencing the "blues" consistently over a period of several weeks should seek professional help from physicians and/or mental health care professionals. Talking with a professional or taking a mental health screening test can help assess whether it's the "blues" or depression."

~ Kirsti A. Dyer, MD

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It is a great article, you might want to read it in its entirety by clicking on the link at the top of this post. Understanding some of the reasons why we feel The Holiday Blues, might help us find healthy ways to cope with our feelings. On that note, in the next post, I will share some tips for dealing with the holiday blues from this and other articles...

peace, hope and love,

Lily