Search Here

If you are celebrating Christmas with less sleep, more alcohol and immense pressure to be a perfect host, here is a health warning for you.

Smaller stressful events are equally negative for health as those such as loss of job or a serious illness, a new study has warned. The Christmas can be full of such smaller stressful events and hence you need to ignore as these can have a serious consequence on a person’s health.

Earlier too studies have proved that that a phenomenon known as the four day desirability dip can occur after smaller and stressful events.

“At Christmas, when we are trying to do everything, or get everything finished at work before the break, there can be a dip in desirable events and a rise in negative mood, caused by the varying pressures we all find ourselves under, such as financial worries, time constraints and a lack of support from friends or family,” explained Dr Anna Phillips, Reader in Behavioural Medicine at the School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation Sciences in the press release.

"These kinds of worries, when built up, can, quite literally make us ill, as the stress from these events affects the balance of the body’s hormones.

Those who have undergone severe stress have higher cortisol:DHEA ratio. It might be also possible that people undergoing a lot of stress on Christmas can also have their cortisol-DHEA ratio affected in a similar way.

As a piece of advise which researchers gave includes taking care of themselves by not skipping sleep and spend time exercising.

“Listen to your body’s slow down signals and obey them – and most of all, make a holiday exactly that; a relaxing break,” concluded Dr Phillips.