Does New Year’s Eve Make Us More Vulnerable To Depression?
The media version of New Year, what we see in television programs, cultural events on the street and even advertising pieces broadcast on those dates, is characterized by joy, good wishes and affection towards loved ones.
In short, almost everything that makes up what in Psychology is called “positive affectivity”: a mental state that allows us to experience well-being and brings us closer to happiness.
However, in the same way that saying something is not the same as doing it, the New Year that we see through the screens does not have to correspond to what the vast majority of people experience. For many, this time does not mean anything special, and is simply another mark on the calendar. And for others, not only are they not dates to feel happy, but they make them feel sad, distressed or invaded by hopelessness.
And it is that the link between the New Year and depression It makes many people vulnerable to this mood disorder have difficulty not feeling very bad during those days that connect one year to the next. Here we will see what causes this phenomenon, and what can be done to deal with it.
This does not mean that certain events inevitably lead us towards a depressed mood, of course. The way we interpret what happens around us plays a very important role in our mental health, making us more or less vulnerable depending on our belief system, attitudes and ideas. The same event can be traumatic for one individual, and emotionally neutral for another.
Now, although the subjectivity of each person influences our propensity to develop psychological disorders, these ways of interpreting reality are never entirely individual and detached from the context; The “glasses” with which we read what is happening around us are not our inventions built from scratch; are influenced by cultural phenomena that mobilize thousands or millions of people And New Year’s is a good example of this.
The relationship between the New Year and depression
Obviously, the mere existence of the New Year does not put everyone at greater risk for symptoms of depression. This link between depressive disorder, on the one hand, and the end of year and beginning of the next year holidays, on the other, is only significant in certain people with a predisposition to this psychological alteration.
How does this link occur? First of all, New Year invites us to look at the past and evaluate what has happened to us. If we believe that it has been a bad year or things have happened for which we have suffered a lot, all the negative emotional load of the last 12 months will hit us at once accumulated in a single mental image, and this can be a sufficient reason for us to lose the desire to participate in any potentially pleasant and stimulating activity, which worsens our mood because we feel isolated, disconnected from the rest.
Besides, New Year encourages comparisons And either by comparing our progress with that of other people, or by comparing ourselves with the “Me” from 12 months ago. If the outcome of this mental exercise is unfavorable, it will damage our self-esteem and our ability to believe in ourselves. Emotional stagnation and hopelessness are another of the basic ingredients of depression, and New Year’s can trigger them if we were already in a situation of emotional vulnerability.
Finally, the combination of all of the above can lead us to become obsessed with the idea that we are marked by many problems that follow us wherever we go, and that do not disappear even if the months pass.
This is the breeding ground for rumination, which is the tendency to dwell a lot on those kinds of thoughts that worry us. It is, in short, a kind of psychological “tunnel vision”, which leads us to not be able to stop thinking about distressing ideas, leaving us only a few hours to “rest” between one ruminative cycle and the next.
As you may have guessed, rumination is also associated with depression. Pessimism attracts pessimism, and one of the characteristic aspects of depression is its self-referential nature: sadness reminds us that we have reasons to be sad, to put it briefly.
How to combat depression in the New Year?
Psychotherapy has proven to be an effective way to combat depression once its symptoms have begun to manifest, and to avoid relapses when a depressive crisis has already been left behind. The tools used by psychologists are varied and adapt to the characteristics of each patient, but they all have something in common: the adoption of new behavioral habits and new mental frameworks from which to interpret reality in a constructive way is encouraged.
At Psicomaster we have a highly trained team with years of professional experience helping people with depression and other mood disorders. If you are interested in visiting our center in Madrid, you can find us at Calle de O’Donnell nº 32 (in the El Retiro area), or by accessing our contact information by clicking here.
