How to cope with pandemic loneliness this holiday season

The holiday season can be a joyous, but many suffer from depression during this time of year. A number of factors can contribute to the “blues” during the holidays, including social isolation, grief and financial strain.

This year, you may also experience feelings of depression and loneliness due to the pandemic.

“People are grieving for similar reasons: loss of family members, jobs, relationships, friendships and physical touch. Everyone is suffering,” said Dr. Asim Shah, psychiatrist at Baylor College of Medicine. “Holiday blues will affect a lot of people this year, including those who haven’t suffered from it before.”

A Neuroscientist used his Research to Heal from Grief using This

Our brain on gratitude

Neuroscientist Glenn Fox has dedicated his life to studying gratitude — how it improves our resilience, lowers stress, and boosts overall health. He’s an expert on the ability of gratitude to help us through tough times.

But on Thanksgiving in 2013, Fox was feeling anything but grateful. That’s because, just a few days before, he’d lost his mother to ovarian cancer.

Your brain on gratitude: How a neuroscientist used his research to heal from griefThe day after, going down to Starbucks for coffee and some pastries, “it was like the most intense experience ever. And I just thought, how am I even going to get through this? How am I even going to order?”

Fox was just months away from completing his Ph.D. on the neural bases of gratitude. He knew from his research how therapeutic gratitude can be — and how it could help him in his long journey recovering from grief. What he didn’t know was how to make that happen on a practical level.

“I thought, you know, I really need to put this into action,” he said. “I don’t want to be flattened by this forever. I don’t want this to define me.”

Jealous of the Angels – read this beautiful poem

Fox’s personal journey into the power of gratitude began after his mother’s diagnosis with stage 4 ovarian cancer. She was interested in his work, but also interested in how it could help her…

“Gratitude fits into a category of what we would call pro-social emotions, and these are emotions that orient us towards the welfare of others,” Simon-Thomas said. “It creates this kind of bond, this enduring sense of connection, with another person or another organism who we’re poised to cooperate with.”

That cooperation, Simon-Thomas said, has been key to our survival as a species.

Learn more about healing with gratitude:

Grief Help: Care For Depression, Anxiety Helps War-Exposed Children

 children grief help

(Reuters Health) – Treating depression and anxiety in youngsters affected by war may have lasting benefits for their mental health and ability to function in society, new findings suggest. The study, of former child soldiers and other young people affected by Sierra Leone’s civil war, found that those with higher levels of anxiety and depression two… [Read more…]