Less stress, more connection, and surprising health benefits with Halloween.
We are moving rapidly into the holiday season. You can’t escape the signs. Stores are selling Halloween decorations, and (way too soon!) winter holiday decorations are sharing the shelves. As a mental health professional, holidays fascinate me. Holidays are intended for us to take a break from work so that we can reunite with family and celebrate traditions. That’s not always how it goes down, though. Our big holidays require a lot of logistics and work and, at times, management of complex family dynamics, and can get very expensive—in short, they can come with a lot of stress.
Halloween, on the other hand, despite not being a day off of work, comes with little stress and expectation, and unless you have to buy three rounds of Halloween candy because you keep eating it too early (not that I have any personal experience…), it’s not terribly expensive. Of interest, minus the candy, Halloween is potentially the holiday with the most mental health benefits.
Let’s talk about the surprising benefits of Halloween.
Establishes bonds with neighbors and community
There is no other holiday that gets you and your neighbors together like Halloween. Whether you are outside decorating your houses, walking around in the fresh air to trick-or-treat at each other's houses, or having a community get-together, Halloween creates involvement in your neighborhood, strengthening neighbor bonds. Is this important? Heck, yeah. Your neighbors are some of the most important people in your lives. Routine casual interactions with neighbors reduce feelings of isolation and loneliness and increase a sense of belonging, provide social and other tangible support, and, when you are able to help a neighbor, feelings of self-worth and value.
It is a true giving holiday
Halloween is truly a giving holiday. It is the only day of the year when you welcome friends, family, and strangers alike to your door. Some communities are so good at this that people who don’t live there show up to trick-or-treat. On no other day of the year is this true. And happily for you, there are physical and mental health benefits to the act of giving. Specifically, the act of giving has been associated with decreased heart rate, blood pressure, and mean arterial pressure; decreased cortisol levels (stress hormone); stimulation of neurochemicals associated with pleasure, mood and social connection (serotonin, dopamine, and oxytocin); and decreased depression, anxiety, and loneliness. Routine giving has even been shown to increase longevity. And Halloween provides a chance to give directly to others, so if you are handing out treats, be ready for everyone. Have some no-sugar treats, dog treats, and a couple of extra trick-or-treat bags for that inevitable child who doesn’t have one. And if you are that full-sized candy bar house, please send me your address.
Halloween stimulates imagination, creativity, and social skills in children
Halloween provides developmental opportunities by encouraging make-believe and stimulating imagination through selection of their alter ego for the night, creating costumes, and decorating. Pretend play in particular has been linked to the ability to self-regulate, because it draws on attention, working memory, adaptability, and impulse control, and creativity is associated with better visual processing and verbal short-term memory and working memory. Additionally, Halloween facilitates structured social interactions with a significant number of people, copious practice of social etiquette and manners (please and thank you!), and sharing behavior (or possibly intense negotiations with siblings over the best stuff). These types of experiences throughout childhood are pivotal to cognitive, social, and emotional development, and, thus, from a developmental perspective, Halloween should be considered an action-packed opportunity.
It’s an easy holiday
Halloween doesn’t involve travel, copious amounts of time, and logistics to buy presents for, feed, and house the entire family, and, as holidays go, can be done fairly inexpensively. Halloween has a fascinating history, but over time has evolved into what we see today: a fun holiday when we can pretend to be someone or something else, scare each other in the name of fun, and of course indulge a little.
So—keep it appropriate, embrace your creativity, have some fun, enjoy the developmental benefits for your kids, don’t forget the dog, get outside, breathe the fresh air, talk to your neighbors, and enjoy the holiday with the least stress.