It was Christmas Eve when George Bailey stared into the black depths of the river beneath the bridge in
Bedford Falls, convinced that the world would be better off without him. That scene from the 1946 movie classic "It's a Wonderful Life" could well have given birth to the media myth that Christmas is a trigger for increased suicides and episodes of depression.
It is a baseless notion, according to a body of published studies by statisticians who have examined hundreds of thousands of suicides in the United States and around the world. The number of suicides goes down, not up, over the holiday season, by as much as 40%.
In one of the most thorough examinations of what researchers call acts of deliberate self-harm, which can be an indication of depression, Helen Bergen, research scientist at the University of Oxford, found that Christmas, for most people, is protective.
Bergen and colleagues reached this conclusion after examining emergency room admission records of 19,346 people in England and looking at daily rates of self-induced injury from 1976 to 2003.
Drug or alcohol overdoses, self-poisoning with gas or other harmful substances and self-inflicted injuries-- with or without the deliberate intention to die -- all decreased from average levels during the week of Dec. 19-26, Bergen and colleagues found, and these lowered levels held through New Year's Day.
The decrease in rates of self-inflicted damage before, on and immediately after Christmas and into the New Year was found regardless of age, family connections or social isolation, the researchers reported in the September issue of the journal Social Science & Medicine.
Even people with family relationship problems were less inclined to attempt to hurt themselves during the holidays. "These findings are contrary to the popular view that Christmas is a time of stress and arguments," Bergen says. Perhaps, she says, problems within the nuclear family ease up instead of intensify when the extended family is around.
Another possible reason why depression and suicide rates fall this time of year is that the season, more than other times, is one of giving. "People tend to reach out over the holidays," says Dr. Douglas Jacobs, a psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School. Elderly people in nursing homes might suddenly get visitors. People who haven't heard from friends all year might get a card or a phone call.
It's only in the last year that the majority of news stories reflected the fact versus the myth about seasonal suicide rates, says
Romer, who since 2000 has been tracking trends in media interpretations of the link between holidays and suicide. In a national search of news stories linking the holidays with suicide, he says, 9% of news organizations supported the myth in 2006, compared with 57% in 2005 and 77% in 1999.
An extra dose of caring probably adds to the psychological protection of a season that seems to insist on happiness. No matter how bad it may seem, holiday rituals add up to more good than bad, buffering adults and children against depression and anxiety.
Barbara
Fiese, chairwoman of psychology at Syracuse University, reviewed 32 studies done over 50 years and concluded that holiday family rituals may be annoying, but they're good for us. People with strong family routines and rituals at holiday time reported more marital satisfaction, better academic achievement among children and better overall health among family members, she found. Even in families in which there has been a divorce, the continuation of family rituals improves the children's ability to adapt and increases their stability.
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