PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

New survey: 79% of survey respondents overlook their health needs during the holidays; find the holidays more stressful than tax season

The American Heart Association releases new survey highlighting how stress from the holiday season can significantly impact healthy habits

2023-12-18
(Press-News.org) Survey Highlights:

A majority of Americans (51%) say it takes them weeks to feel less stressed after the holidays, with more than a quarter of moms reporting it takes them a month or more to recover. 71% of respondents say that their biggest regret after the holidays is that they did not take the time to relax and enjoy the season. Overall, respondents (63%) claimed that the holiday season is more stressful than tax season. Eating healthy (69%), exercising regularly (64%), and getting enough sleep (56%) are the top three things that respondents have trouble prioritizing during the holiday season. 79% of people surveyed agree that, during the holidays, they are so focused on creating special moments for others they overlook their own needs. DALLAS, Dec. 18, 2023 — According to new survey from the American Heart Association, the holidays are more stressful than taxes, causing people to overlook their own health during ‘the most wonderful time of the year.’ The survey suggests  that adults of all ages have trouble prioritizing their mental and physical health at this time of year.

Of the 1,000 U.S. adults nationwide surveyed in December 2023 for the American Heart Association’s Healthy for GoodTM initiative by Wakefield Research, more than half (63%) claimed that the holiday season is more stressful to them than tax season. Balancing work, family, finances and everyday obligations, while trying to fit in festive events that make this time of year special becomes overwhelming and induces chronic stress for many.

Many survey respondents (71%) said that their biggest regret each holiday season is that they did not take time to relax and enjoy themselves. Most survey respondents say it takes them weeks to feel less stressed after the holidays; with moms reporting it takes them a month or more to recover.

The demands of the holiday season can often feel overwhelming; however, by practicing simple healthy habits, the stress from the holiday hustle and bustle can be easier to navigate and more relaxing.

“Chronic stress can negatively impact both your long-term mental and physical health in many ways if left unmanaged,” said Glenn N. Levine, M.D., FAHA, American Heart Association volunteer, writing committee chair of the Association’s 2021 Psychological Health, Well-Being, and the Mind-Heart-Body Connection scientific statement. “The holidays are an easy time to justify putting off healthy habits, but it’s important to manage chronic stress and other risk factors to stay healthy during the holiday season and into the New Year.”

Keeping healthy habits during the holidays can be difficult, but these small additions from the American Heart Association, a global force for longer, healthier lives for all, can help manage holiday stress.

Eat Smart – Eat reasonable portions and think about what colorful fruits and vegetables you can add to your plate versus foods to avoid. Move More – Physical activity is one of the best ways to manage stress, so aim to take a short walk each day. Any amount of movement counts. Sleep Well – Quality sleep can influence your mood, eating habits, memory and more. Experiment with setting an alarm reminding you to silence your phone notifications and wind down. Connecting with others is one of the most important aspects of the holiday season. Whenever you or a loved one begins to feel stressed, make sure to express your feelings and lean upon each other for support, so you can enjoy the holidays together with lighter, healthier hearts.

The American Heart Association’s Healthy for GoodTM initiative offers tips for managing stress, creating heart-healthy habits and more at heart.org/stress.  

Additional Resources:

Multimedia is available in the right column of the release link.  Spanish news release to be added as available. AHA health resource: Fight Stress With Healthy Habits (Infographic)  AHA health resource: Life’s Essential 8 AHA health resource: Minimizing Stress, Maximizing Health this Holiday Season

###

About the American Heart Association

The American Heart Association is a relentless force for a world of longer, healthier lives. We are dedicated to ensuring equitable health in all communities. Through collaboration with numerous organizations, and powered by millions of volunteers, we fund innovative research, advocate for the public’s health and share lifesaving resources. The Dallas-based organization has been a leading source of health information for nearly a century. Connect with us on heart.org, Facebook, X or by calling 1-800-AHA-USA1.

Survey Methodology

The AHA Holiday Stress was conducted by Wakefield Research (www.wakefieldresearch.com) among 1,000 nationally representative U.S. adults ages 18+, between November 28thand December 4th, 2023, using an email invitation and an online survey.

Results of any sample are subject to sampling variation. The magnitude of the variation is measurable and is affected by the number of interviews and the level of the percentages expressing the results. For the interviews conducted in this particular study, the chances are 95 in 100 that a survey result does not vary, plus or minus, by more than 3.1 percentage points from the result that would be obtained if interviews had been conducted with all persons in the universe represented by the sample.

END



ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Public opinion polls may not be as straightforward as you think

2023-12-18
Public opinion polls are often considered "the will of the people" but a new study on the role of polls in South Korea shows that they may not always be that transparent. "Using polls to gauge what people think about politics is not as simple as it sounds, as there are multiple mediating factors between what people think and how their views may be represented in the media," says co-author Sunmin Kim, an assistant professor of sociology at Dartmouth. "Our research shows more broadly, how in a democracy, measuring what people think or want can be a highly haphazard and unpredictable process based on the ways public opinion poll ...

Study assesses GPT-4’s potential to perpetuate racial, gender biases in clinical decision making

2023-12-18
A team of Brigham researchers analyzed GPT-4’s performance in four clinical decision support scenarios: generating clinical vignettes, diagnostic reasoning, clinical plan generation and subjective patient assessments.  When prompted to generate clinical vignettes for medical education, GPT-4 failed to model the demographic diversity of medical conditions, exaggerating known demographic prevalence differences in 89% of diseases.  When evaluating patient perception, GPT-4 produced significantly different responses by gender or race/ethnicity for 23% of cases.  Large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and GPT-4 have the potential to assist in ...

Apes remember friends they haven’t seen for decades

Apes remember friends they haven’t seen for decades
2023-12-18
Apes recognize photos of groupmates they haven’t seen for more than 25 years and respond even more enthusiastically to pictures of their friends, a new study finds. The work, which demonstrates the longest-lasting social memory ever documented outside of humans, and underscores how human culture evolved from the common ancestors we share with apes, our closest relatives, was published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “Chimpanzees and bonobos recognize individuals even though they haven’t seen them for ...

Scientists might be using a flawed strategy to predict how species will fare under climate change

Scientists might be using a flawed strategy to predict how species will fare under climate change
2023-12-18
EMBARGO LIFTS DEC. 18, 2023, AT 3:00 PM U.S. EASTERN TIME As the world heats up, and the climate shifts, life will migrate, adapt or go extinct. For decades, scientists have deployed a specific method to predict how a species will fare during this time of great change. But according to new research, that method might be producing results that are misleading or wrong. University of Arizona researchers and their team members at the U.S. Forest Service and Brown University found that the method – commonly referred to as space-for-time substitution – failed to accurately predict how a widespread tree of the Western U.S. called the ...

Mesopotamian bricks unveil the strength of Earth’s ancient magnetic field

Mesopotamian bricks unveil the strength of Earth’s ancient magnetic field
2023-12-18
Ancient bricks inscribed with the names of Mesopotamian kings have yielded important insights into a mysterious anomaly in Earth’s magnetic field 3,000 years ago, according to a new study involving UCL researchers. The research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), describes how changes in the Earth’s magnetic field imprinted on iron oxide grains within ancient clay bricks, and how scientists were able to reconstruct these changes from the names of the kings inscribed on the bricks. The team hopes that using this “archaeomagnetism,” which looks for signatures ...

Move over dolphins. Chimps and bonobos can recognize long-lost friends and family — for decades

2023-12-18
Researchers led by a University of California, Berkeley, comparative psychologist have found that great apes and chimpanzees, our closest living relatives, can recognize groupmates they haven't seen in over two decades — evidence of what’s believed to be the longest-lasting nonhuman memory ever recorded.  The findings also bolster the theory that long-term memory in humans, chimpanzees and bonobos likely comes from our shared common ancestor that lived between 6 million and 9 million years ago. The team used infrared eye-tracking cameras to record where bonobos and chimps gazed when they were shown side-by-side images of other bonobos ...

First observation of how water molecules move near a metal electrode

First observation of how water molecules move near a metal electrode
2023-12-18
A collaborative team of experimental and computational physical chemists from South Korea and the United States have made an important discovery in the field of electrochemistry, shedding light on the movement of water molecules near metal electrodes. This research holds profound implications for the advancement of next-generation batteries utilizing aqueous electrolytes. In the nanoscale realm, chemists typically utilize laser light to illuminate molecules and measure spectroscopic properties to visualize molecules. However, studying the behavior of ...

Harnessing nanotechnology to understand tumor behavior

Harnessing nanotechnology to understand tumor behavior
2023-12-18
A study conducted by pre-PhD researcher Pablo S. Valera and recently published in PNAS demonstrates the potential of surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) to explore metabolites secreted by cancer cells in cancer research. The study, which has been led by Ikerbasque Research Professors Luis Liz-Marzán (from CIC biomaGUNE) and Arkaitz Carracedo (of CIC bioGUNE) and in which other researchers from both centers, also members of the Networking Biomedical Research Centre (CIBER), have participated as well, provides valuable information to guide more specific experiments to reveal ...

Exercise-induced Pgc-1α expression inhibits fat accumulation in aged skeletal muscles

2023-12-18
Myosteatosis, or aging-related fat accumulation in skeletal muscles, is a leading cause of declines in muscle strength and quality of life in elderly adults. Older adults who are sedentary and develop accumulated fat in the skeletal muscle are often prescribed exercise by their doctors to combat the condition. If scientists were to develop a new therapy, such as medications, to combat myosteatosis, they would need to replicate the mechanism by which exercise might reduce fat accumulation in muscles.    Fibro-adipogenic ...

NASA’s Webb rings in holidays with ringed planet Uranus

NASA’s Webb rings in holidays with ringed planet Uranus
2023-12-18
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope recently trained its sights on unusual and enigmatic Uranus, an ice giant that spins on its side. Webb captured this dynamic world with rings, moons, storms, and other atmospheric features – including a seasonal polar cap. The image expands upon a two-color version released earlier this year, adding additional wavelength coverage for a more detailed look. With its exquisite sensitivity, Webb captured Uranus’ dim inner and outer rings, including the ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Mammals were adapting from life in the trees to living on the ground before dinosaur-killing asteroid

Low LDL cholesterol levels linked to reduced risk of dementia

Thickening of the eye’s retina associated with greater risk and severity of postoperative delirium in older patients

Almost one in ten people surveyed report having been harmed by the NHS in the last three years

Enhancing light control with complex frequency excitations

New research finds novel drug target for acute myeloid leukemia, bringing hope for cancer patients

New insight into factors associated with a common disease among dogs and humans

Illuminating single atoms for sustainable propylene production

New study finds Rocky Mountain snow contamination

Study examines lactation in critically ill patients

UVA Engineering Dean Jennifer West earns AIMBE’s 2025 Pierre Galletti Award

Doubling down on metasurfaces

New Cedars-Sinai study shows how specialized diet can improve gut disorders

Making moves and hitting the breaks: Owl journeys surprise researchers in western Montana

PKU Scientists simulate the origin and evolution of the North Atlantic Oscillation

ICRAFT breakthrough: Unlocking A20’s dual role in cancer immunotherapy

How VR technology is changing the game for Alzheimer’s disease

A borrowed bacterial gene allowed some marine diatoms to live on a seaweed diet

Balance between two competing nerve proteins deters symptoms of autism in mice

Use of antifungals in agriculture may increase resistance in an infectious yeast

Awareness grows of cancer risk from alcohol consumption, survey finds

The experts that can outsmart optical illusions

Pregnancy may reduce long COVID risk

Scientists uncover novel immune mechanism in wheat tandem kinase

Three University of Virginia Engineering faculty elected as AAAS Fellows

Unintentional drug overdoses take a toll across the U.S. unequally, study finds

A step toward plant-based gelatin

ECMWF unveils groundbreaking ML tool for enhanced fire prediction

The food and fuel that farms itself

Patient- and Community-Level Characteristics Associated With RSV Vaccination

[Press-News.org] New survey: 79% of survey respondents overlook their health needs during the holidays; find the holidays more stressful than tax season
The American Heart Association releases new survey highlighting how stress from the holiday season can significantly impact healthy habits