Dear friends,
Christmas Eve is the most common day of the year to suffer a heart attack, researchers have found.
A study done in Sweden over 16 years compared the dates and times of 280,000 heart attacks. They found heart attacks peaked at 10 pm on December 24. The researchers, led by experts at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, found the risk of a heart attack rises by 37 per cent on Christmas Eve. Christmas Day is slightly safer, with a 29 per cent increased risk. New Year’s Eve is no more dangerous than any other day of the year, but on New Year’s Day the risk rises again by 20 per cent.
Their conclusion – “Acute experience of anger, anxiety, sadness, grief, and stress increases the risk of myocardial infarction [heart attack] and thus possibly explains the higher risk.
The scientists, writing in the British Medical Journal, said strategies should be developed to protect people from stress in the run-up to Christmas.
Question – what is your strategy for alleviating stress? Leaving Silicon Valley? (Let me remind you that the study was done in Sweden.) How about hibernating? It works for some creatures on planet earth.
It would seem that “Christmas is the best time of the year to have a heart attack.” Christmas really does deal with the heart – yours and mine. Christ Jesus came into the world to save the brokenhearted as well as the depressed, the stressed-out and the down and out.
Christmas is my favorite time of the year. I have so many fond memories and they keep building year after year. I want to share a message with you tomorrow entitled, “The Truth About Christmas.” I am praying that it will be a stress-reliever and not a heart stopper.
Because the Word became flesh,
Glen