Is Too Much Christmas Carols Bad For Your Mental Health

We can’t deny how much we like Christmas. We look forward to it as soon as it is over and can’t wait for the next holiday season all-year-round. It’s like we have a subtle obsession with the holiday seasons and it is mainly because of our positive experience of Christmas in our childhood. Most children can remember the happiness they feel come Christmas morning when they see the Christmas tree full of presents ready to be opened while Christmas carols can be heard all throughout the house and that of your neighbors too. The sound of carols has a big impact on us as it reminds us of the feeling of that Christmas morning we have been reliving in our minds all these years and we take comfort in it knowing that the world is not as bad as it seems.

Unfortunately, there are some experts saying that listening to Christmas carols may actually do you more harm than good especially when you are repeatedly exposed to it months ahead of the holidays. Just what do the experts know about it for them to be able to say this? Do they have a solid proof that constant exposure to the sound of carols is actually harming our health and not the other way around? Well, we’re about to find out.

Employees working in stores that repeatedly play Christmas music could be at risk of their mental health deteriorating, experts have warned. 

Songs of the season can encourage customers to make impulse purchases by prompting feelings of nostalgia and warmth — which retailers like. 

But staff, who have to listen to the songs over and over again throughout their shifts, have to 'tune out', says clinical psychologist Linda Blair.

'Music goes right to our emotions immediately and it bypasses rationality,' she told Sky News. 

(Via: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5075227/Workers-mental-health-risk-Christmas-songs.html)

It is so ironic right when the sound of carols filling the air is not working the way that it should be. Well, it may be a positive experience for consumers who suddenly feel an impulse to buy a gift or two for their loved ones but it apparently has a negative effect to the people working in that store or shop. They become numb to these songs and the essence of Christmas is eventually lost on them as the days drag on. During Christmastime itself, they already lose interest and Christmas will never be the same for them anymore.

Clinical psychologist Linda Blair told Sky News that Christmas songs can make us feel “trapped”. “It’s a reminder that we have to buy presents, cater for people, and organize celebrations,” she said.
Well, surely that can’t be too bad unless “Grinch” or "Scrooge" is your middle name.
Blair also shared that people working in shops during the festive season have to try and tune out of Christmas songs because if they don’t, they lose focus.
“You’re simply spending all of your energy trying not to hear what you’re hearing,” she said.

(Via: http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/christmas-music-could-harm-your-mental-health/)

Some stores have taken this warning seriously and turned off sounds of carols in the mall while some invited choirs and singers to perform and sing carols for the public, so the music does not sound so repetitive to the employees manning the store. The experts have actually coined a term for it, “the exposure effect”, which explains the relationship between us hearing a music we like and our subsequent reaction to it. Nobody discredits the joy these Christmas carols bring but if you keep on hearing them months prior the holidays, it sounds like an overkill already and you eventually lose interest on Christmas altogether and change your mind about it. Worst is that your mental health suffers because you work in a mall and you keep hearing songs of carols on repeat over the past few months or weeks.

Is Too Much Christmas Carols Bad For Your Mental Health was originally published to The HD Business Blog

source https://hdbizblog.com/blog/is-too-much-christmas-carols-bad-for-your-mental-health/