What keeps our hearts beating? Modern science refers to electrical impulses controlled by hormonal activity within the body, and Chinese medicine talks about the energetic force of chi animating us. Cat Power asserts that "it must just be the colors and the kids that keep me alive." However, hyperbole and indie rock aside, what if it is the basic will to live that keeps us alive?
M. Shimizu & B. W. Pelham sought to answer this question with their study "Postponing a date with the Grim Reaper: Ceremonial events and mortality" for the journal Basic and Applied Social Psychology. The 2008 study looked at death records for millions of Americans using Social Security Death Index (SSDI) records. They wanted to determine whether people died more often before a major holiday (Thanksgiving, Christmas, or New Year's Day) or event (the person's birthday), compared to after the holiday or event.
The researchers found a surprising pattern: folks were more likely to die just after Christmas and Thanksgiving. However, New Year's Day and the person's birthday were also some of the most frequent dates of death observed in the study. Why is this? The answer may lie in the social nature of the holidays. Christmas and Thanksgiving are important social events - the celebrations last all day and often involve a great number of social visits. However, the social component of New Year's Day actually occurs on the night before - New Year's Eve. The researchers coined the term "Ceremonial Finish Lines" to describe the point that the dying reach on New Year's Day and their birthday - basically, the point at which on an inner level it is acknowledged that the desired event is over and that it is an alright time to die.
What does this mean? The researchers assert that the thing that is keeping people alive during these events and abandoning them at the reach of the "ceremonial finish line" is something basic and yet highly mysterious: the will to live. "Taken together, the [...] analyses suggest that the desire to live is the key variable that links ceremonial events to [death]," they assert.
While the study is not without its flaws - for example, it omits the major causal factor that many people eat rich, fatty meals on Christmas and Thanksgiving or drink alcohol on New Year's Eve, which could both increase morbidity - it is tantalizing to consider that the major sustaining factor for life is the will to stay alive. It points toward a poignant possibility: that the meaning we attach to the events of our lives could give us the impetus to sustain ourselves, in a sense to save our own lives, until we get to our desired destination.
In short - the holidays may be a dark time of year, but you can get yourself through them by focusing on some goals farther out than January. Luckily, this year you have the YJGM Close-Knit Contest to get you through New Year's Day, and some exciting contests that we here at YJGM are about to announce to keep you guessing until the Spring!
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