Stress spikes during holidays. Christmas is the blockbuster of holidays.  For many, it is incredibly stressful, fully stretching all their emotions for better or worse.   The emotional extremes are illustrated in the two pictures above.   The first "Watching, Waiting, Fearful" is by Dr. Joel Schechter, my Postdoctoral mentor at the University of Southern California.  It captures the feeling of being vulnerable and  afraid, trapped in a dark nightmare.  Joel is an accomplished scientist and award-winning artist who drew this during the height of the Covid Pandemic to reflect the mood of fear and despair gripping many at that time.  The second one is a stock picture of ideal joy and magic that many expect at Christmas.

      Emotions set the tone for what we feel and think. Recall the last time you were extremely angry or frightened; the heart pounding, gut-wrenching tension engulfing your whole being.  In contrast, remember the warm feelings of joy cheerfully raising your spirits when celebrating with old friends.  Our emotions, what we feel and think have remarkably long-term effects on our health, wellbeing, quality of life, and longevity. 1  Here we examine the nature of emotions and ways we can keep them working for us and not against us.  Skills that are important for dealing with emotion-laden challenges such as holidays.

     There are significant differences between emotions and feelings.  Emotions automatically activate ancient neural networks shared with many animal species.  Networks that have evolved to automatically elicit responses that can have profound survival value.  Emotions generate feelings which come through our conscious nervous system. The feelings they arouse are personalized based on past experiences and memories. Events that strongly influence our perception of what is happening in the present moments.

     Because their fundamental function is to promote survival, I believe the common premise that four of our basic emotions are negative is wrong.  Instead, the four – Anger, Fear, Disgust, and Sadness – are bidirectional states that can be either beneficial or harmful depending on their intensity, duration, and perception.  By the same token, the other two basic emotions – Joy and Surprise – are also bidirectional. At first glance, this seems surprising because Joy in its various manifestations including happiness and satisfaction is often considered to be a desired state, a goal of many world religions and philosophies.

     To make the case that all emotions can be beneficial and vital, I have listed their fundtions in the roller-coaster ups and downs of living life fully. The benefits are shown in Table 1 and their potential for being harmful are listed in Table 2.   I then discuss equanimity, the skill in staying thoughtful, calm, and collected, An effective antidote to harmful emotional imbalances and Bad Stress.   I go on to review Charles Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol to illustrate how the emotions elicited by great storytelling can promote positive feelings, thoughts, and behaviors.     And in doing so, how Dickens’ story has been instrumental in giving rise to the Secular Christmas Holiday we celebrate today.

Table 1. Positive Benefits of the Six Basic Emotions

• Joy: Feeling optimistic, energized, and empowered. It comes through activation of the reward system of the brain. The survival value is in finding happiness, satisfaction, and contentment in life.
• Sadness: Feelings of loss, including sorrow, dejection, isolation, and despair. The survival value comes through alerting others that you need help. It can increase empathy and compassion for you, and you for others when they are sad. Tragedies can bring friends, families, and communities together to deal with the loss. Also, insights often develop from going through a period of sadness about what is important in life.
• Anger: Feeling threatened, insulted by violations of your core values, or in a life and death situation. It activates the Fight or Flight response in the body. The survival value is in providing the focus, energy, and strength to act against the threat.
• Fear: Feelings are very similar to anger in feeling threatened, insulted by violations of your core values, or in a life and death crisis. It activates the Fight or Flight response in the body. The survival value is in providing the focus, energy, and strength to respond to the threat by active avoidance.
• Disgust: Feelings of nausea, repulsion, nastiness, sickness to things, people, and ideas. The survival value is in avoiding dangerous contaminants, germs, viruses, and ideas that can sicken and kill. 2
• Surprise: The quick, highly attentive awareness that comes when something unexpected is happening. The survival value is from the immediate focus directed towards determining the threat level and what to do.

     Emotions often blend. For example, bittersweet experiences elicit a mixture of joy and sadness. What is crucial is maintaining a balance, keeping each emotion in a manageable range. Emotions running out of control are risky and often destructive. Medical care is often needed to treat the physical and mental disorders that can result.

Table 2. Negative Effects of the Six Basic Emotions

• Joy: Excessive blissful joy can lead to making poor decisions and trusting the wrong people. Trying to maintain high levels of joy with drugs such as  euphoria induced by methamphetamine  or mind-numbing with alcohol can lead to destructive addictions.
• Sadness: Ruminating, becoming locked into repeated thoughts about negative emotional experiences, their causes and consequences can lead to illness and deep, prolonged depression.
• Anger: Ruminating, becoming locked into repeated thoughts about anger-evoking emotional experiences is particularly dangerous, raising the risk for mental illness and serious violence harming oneself and others.
• Fear: Ruminating, becoming locked into repeated fearful thoughts about feeling threatened, insulted, or abusive relationships is also dangerous, raising the risk for mental illness and serious violence harming oneself and others.
• Disgust: While Disgust can be protective against eating or handling dangerous substances, when all food is considered nauseous by someone disgusted with their body image and trying to lose weight, it can lead to anorexia.
• Surprise: The quick arousal of highly attentive awareness that something unexpected is happening. The harmful effects depend on determining the threat and the actions taken.

Equanimity: The Great Equalizer:

     The skill of equanimity involves staying calm, composed and thoughtful, even in emotional, painful, and strained situations. It can be incredibly helpful in maintaining emotional balance. The transition from an automatic emotion to a conscious feeling provides the opportunity for the conscious nervous system to take over and mindfully respond rather than impulsively reacting, often making things worse. The skill comes in mindfully recognizing the brief interval between an emotion and action. And in that interval, intervene with “engaging the mind before the mouth”.

     All six emotions promote conscious responses that govern the level of arousal with resulting generation of Good or Bad stress (see Post 4). It is amazing how being the calmest person in the room can deescalate stress and promote realistic coping with problems. Equanimity allows the positive values of all the emotions to be expressed and reduces their potential for negativity.

Christmas: The Most Wonderful Time of the Year?

     Christmas has become a secular, heavily commercialized time of the year, celebrated regardless of one’s religious or non-religious views. The better side of Secular Christmas is that most Americans report positive emotions of joy with love and high spirits while spending time with family and friends. 3  On the other side, many report increased fatigue and irritability. For a significant number, there is sadness, anger, and loneliness.  There is also a Christmas Holiday Effect with increased deaths from natural causes on Christmas and New Years. 4    Stress, depression and anxiety along with excessive drinking and eating are among the causes that have been identified.

     Perceptions are a major determinant of stress levels. Perceptions of what secular Christmas should be come in good measure from Charles Dickens’ story A Christmas Carol. 5   When it was published in 1843, Christmas was a mundane, middling religious holiday, suspicious because of its pagan origins celebrating Winter Solstice. Dickens’ gripping tale of Scrooge’s metamorphosis during Christmas not only captivated his English and American readers, but also catalyzed a metamorphosis in their feelings and thoughts.

     Scrooge as the story opens is portrayed as “squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous..…secret and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster.” A despicable, miserable, isolated old guy. His transformation comes through visitations by four spirits while he sleeps on Christmas Eve. Through their visits, Scrooge’s life – past, present, and future – is revealed. As we learn more about Scrooge’s past, his painful childhood, his lost opportunities for love, his lost loved ones, and the decisions that led to his miserable existence, we become sympathetic to his plight. And we can relate to his fears and anguish stirred up by the visiting ghosts. They are common in our nightmares.  We think in stories, we dream in stories, and stories transform us. Dickens’ story of Scrooge resonates with us. In the end, we rejoice and participate in his redemption and transformation on Christmas morning.  Scrooge “became as good a friend, as good a master, and a good a man, as the good old city knew…” The miserable, soulless materialist was now human and humane.  Now he was happy, helping others and enjoying life.

     Dickens recognized the impact his story. He became an apostle, a moral reformer for celebrating Secular Christmas. His philosophy was beautifully stated in the story.  Christmas was “a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open up their shut-up hearts freely.”  A time to think and diligently care for others.

     Much of the stress surrounding Secular Christmas comes from the unachievable expectations it creates for continuous overflowing joy. Expectations heightened by the hype that has steadily increased over the years following Dickens’ publication. Real life is more complex and nuanced.   Other emotions are often called forth: sadness, anger, fear, and disgust.  Emotions that can make us feel terribly stressed and sad about not being happy.   Accepting that there is a place for all emotions and their beneficial effects is an important step towards managing the challenges of holidays.  Practicing equanimity is another valuable  step that can make an incredible difference.

     Winter Solstice is a cold and barren time of the year with long dark nights. A season begging for reasons to celebrate life and anticipate the return of sunlight to the frozen earth.  Dickens provides good reasons, spirit-raising reasons for doing so.  Great stories can become timeless.  A Christmas Carol lives on, being retold time and time again in various ways. It is currently a Broadway Play, available online in movies and videos, in audio books, and in libraries for reading the original novelle.

How to Manage the Emotional Challenges of Secular Christmas?

Here I am using the time- honored practice of responding by asking two questions. Your answers and comments are welcome. Send them to me at dongash@khtnow.com . With your permission, they may be added to this article on my Agingsuccessfully.org website.

     1. What led to Scrooge’s profound Christmas morning transformation?

a. He was scared straight.

b. Woke up to the numerous social injustices of his time. (woken before it became fashionable)

c. Four successful spirit-led psychotherapy sessions led him to confront the abuses and fears of his childhood.

d. Autobiographical account of Dickens’ transformation to thrive in secular Christmas celebrations, recovering from his abusive, troubled childhood.

e. Other reasons.

     2. What strategies do you recommend for not only surviving difficult holidays, but to thrive in them?

Readers Responses

     1. What led to Scrooge’s profound Christmas morning transformation?

     Most readers selected “all of the above”. One exception was John Deans who wrote, “C is the path I would select. Scrooge was a wealthy businessman who enjoyed financial success. But at such a price! He had character flaws of his own creation which he “learned to live with”. The real issue was the spreading darkness, isolationism and indifference to humanity for the Christmas Holiday. “Bah Humbug” was Scrooge’s battle cry and true feelings. The four spirit-led sessions provided him a chance to objectively review and act upon his poor selections at various junctions of his life. Most notable was his involvement in medical actions for Tiny Tim.”

     2. What strategies do you recommend for not only surviving difficult holidays, but to thrive in them?

     Here are three responses that were received.

         “Strategies I would recommend for thriving difficult holidays is to reach out to friends and relatives, especially single ones, to spend time with them (dinner, movies, activities, concerts); to have projects such as making things (crafts, food, writing) that can be used and/or shared; sending Christmas cards or seasons greetings; calling or emailing friends and relatives; sending photos with news; doing zooms if possible; just connecting with people and sharing news would be good!”    Cecilia Wang

“Strategies to thrive in the holidays? Interaction with family and friends! There are church groups and local charities (God’s Food Bank, Lexington Rescue Mission, Salvation Army, Red Cross are a few worthwhile causes worthy of your time). Give yourself some quiet time to reflect on where you are in life. What can you do? What should you do with your time.”      John Deans

Highlighting the advice that we always receive when flying to put on your own oxygen mask first before helping others, “I personally believe the way to ease tensions and to have positive experiences is to put YOUR feelings and needs FIRST.I   If you are the most important person (in your mind) it becomes easier to meet the needs of others.”    Debi Gall

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Sources

1. Levy B. (2022) Breaking the Aging Code: How your beliefs about aging determine how long & well you live. Harper, Collins Publishers.

2. Curtis M, deBarra M, Aunger R. (2011) Disgust as an adaptive system for disease avoidance behavior. Phil Trans R Soc. 366:389-401. PMID: 21199843

3. Greenberg A and Berktold J. (2006) Holiday Stress. Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research. Online apa.org press release

4. Olsson A et al. (2021) Christmas holiday triggers of myocardial infarction. Scand Cardiovasc J 55: 340-344.

PMID: 34585998

5. Dickens C. (1843) A Christmas Carol. Chapman and Hall, London. Available online and widely reprinted.

The Author: Don Gash is an emeritus professor of Neuroscience (PhD) in the College of Medicine and

Lewis Honors College at the University of Kentucky. His expertise is in drug development for diseases of aging, especially those effecting the brain. Over Fifteen years ago, he recognized that aging posed serious threats to health and wellbeing – and had many features of being a disease. Dr. Gash felt that his experience in developing therapies for neurological diseases could be used to better understand normal aging processes and ways to promote successful aging. Ways that activate natural healing processes in the brain and body to effectively restore true wellbeing. Lifestyles and practices that do not replace good medical care when needed but make it work better. The advice given is evidence-based on published studies, including his, and from years of personally testing many programs and exercises to identify those which effectively cultivate and enable Aging Successfully.