Bye, festivity. Hi, depression

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">It’s the lull after the storm. The day after Diwali, Gaurav Sharma visited the shrink. Carried away by the mood of the moment, Gaurav gambled away a considerable sum of money on the big night. Since then, he hasn’t been feeling too good about ‘‘squandering’’ his hard-earned pay cheque.<br />But that’s just the tip of the tale.For, Gaurav doesn’t present an isolated case. Now that the celebratory stretch from Dussehra to Diwali is past the calendar, a lot of people seem to be suffering from post-festival blues. Explains Sandeep Vohra, a consultant psychiatrist at Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, ‘‘When in the festive mood, there tends to be a surge in hormonal secretion within the body. But once this celebratory mood passes away, these biochemicals start subsiding and a ‘low’ sets in, specially among those predisposed towards anxiety and stress.’’<br />Analyses psychiatrist Sunil Mittal, MD, ‘‘The festive mood ushers in a sense of being on a high. Consequently, feelings of exhaustion and stress, which could otherwise crop up, tend to get camouflaged.’’<br />According to psychiatrist Samir Parikh, MD, ‘‘Even pleasant events can exert stress — eustress, which is pleasant stress, as against dystress or unpleasant stress.’’ Psychiatrists reason that individualstend to reach unrealistic highs during the festive season. The flip side is that coping with ‘normal’ life after an enjoyable break becomes difficult. ‘‘This is why it is important to understand that a break is best seen as a period of relaxation rather than an escape from reality,’’ says psychiatrist Sanjay Chugh, MD.<br />Symptoms associated with post-festival depression include a sense of boredom and irritability. Parikh, on his part, has a suggestion to offer. ‘‘Appreciate the purpose of a break: relaxation, which is a shot in the arm for the next session of life.’’ In other words, yesterday was another day; look forward to tomorrow and your blues will be in the red! <br /><span style="" font-style:="" italic="">sanghitasingh@indiatimes.com</span> </div> </div>