With the holiday season high, there is festive cheer, family gatherings and also an undeniable increases in alcohol consumption that fills the air. Christmas and New Year's Eve celebrations to spring break and bachelor parties and sporting events that bring together huge crowds for celebrations mean that drinking becomes synonymous with partying. But behind the revelry lies a much darker behavior: high-intensity drinking.

Alcohol is the most widely used substance in the United States; it has been reported that 84% of adults aged 18 and older reported lifetime use. Moderate drinking is socially acceptable, but high-intensity drinking is an alarming trend. The behavior of consuming eight or more drinks over a few hours for women and 10 or more for men exceeds binge drinking and significantly increases risk for harm.

High-intensity drinking is far from being just a mere passing concern; it is instead a public health crisis. The burden is even greater as 29 million people in the United States suffer from alcohol use disorder. That has caused over 140,000 deaths annually while accounting for 200,000 hospitalizations and 7.4% of visits to emergency departments in the United States. However, only 7.6% of these affected get treated, thus forming a glaring gap in handling this concern.

What Is High-Intensity Drinking?

High-intensity drinking is a dangerous escalation from traditional binge drinking, characterized by consuming double or triple the standard binge amounts. While binge drinking involves four or more drinks for women and five or more for men, high-intensity drinkers often surpass these levels, leading to blood alcohol concentrations (BAC) exceeding 0.2%—a level that significantly impairs judgment and motor skills.

According to Dr. George Koob, the director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), high-intensity drinking is one of the factors that intensify the risks of injuries, overdose, and death. It is also very highly associated with the onset of AUD, since the chance of addiction increases with increased alcohol consumption per occasion.

Blackouts and Memory Loss Risks

One of the most troubling consequences of high-intensity drinking is alcohol-induced blackouts, periods of amnesia where individuals may appear functional but are incapable of forming memories. Blackouts occur when alcohol disrupts the hippocampus, the brain region responsible for memory formation.

Blackouts are often categorized into two types:

1. Fragmentary Blackouts: Characterized by spotty memory, where recalling certain details can trigger partial recollection.

2. En Bloc Blackouts: Significant amnesia for hours, wherein no memory is created at all, even if tried to be recalled.

Aside from memory loss, intense binge drinking is linked with poor decision-making, violence, injury, and conflicts in personal relationships.

Why Holidays and Special Events Are Hotbeds for Excessive Drinking

Holidays and celebrations create the perfect storm for high-intensity drinking. According to research, adults drink nearly double the amount of alcohol during holidays like Christmas and New Year's Eve than they do at any other time of the year. It is during these periods of social gathering, holiday stress, and seasonal sadness that people drink in excess.

For college students, experiences like spring break and 21st birthdays increase the danger. Some studies indicate that students, especially those who travel with buddies to spring break, indulge in more alcohol and make more serious decisions than any student who remains at home or goes with their family to other destinations. Sporting events are, too, notorious for promoting drunk consumption, especially among male customers. Alcohol consumption usually goes high during Super Bowl Sunday, thus leading to games day violence and arrests.

Consequences of Heavy Intensity Drinking

High-intensity drinking impacts not only physical health and mental well-being but also social relationships.

Acute Risks

- Alcohol poisoning

- Severe dehydration and electrolyte imbalances

- Hypoglycemia

- Risky sexual behavior

- Injuries and accidents

Chronic Risks

- Liver damage, alcoholic hepatitis, and cirrhosis

- Cardiovascular diseases such as arrhythmias and cardiomyopathy

- Neurological damage, including memory deficits and blackouts

- Progression to alcohol dependence or AUD

Psychological Impact

High-intensity drinking is strongly linked with increased risks of depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation. Poor decision-making during episodes can lead to long-lasting consequences, including damaged academic, professional, or personal outcomes.

How to Address the Problem

Combating high-intensity drinking requires education, early intervention, and accessible treatment options. The NIAAA has defined high-intensity drinking to be distinct from binge drinking and has called for targeted approaches to decline prevalence and associated harms.

One promising treatment option is naltrexone, which a medication helps control alcohol cravings. Encouraging in preliminary evidence, more extensive clinical trials will be necessary to ascertain its efficacy more specifically in high-intensity drinkers.

As we head into the holiday season and other special occasions, it is important to heighten awareness of the dangers of high-intensity drinking. A good understanding of long-term consequences and seeking help when alcohol-related issues arise can be the difference between life and death. Celebrations should be about joy and connection, not about the gateway to harm.

If you or someone you know drinks at dangerous levels or have an alcohol use disorder, there is help available. Remember, for suspected cases of alcohol poisoning, dial 911. In this way, we can foster healthier relationships with alcohol and create safer environments for everyone.

New Delhi: There is a particular kind of frustration that comes with lying in bed, physically spent after a long day, and finding that sleep simply will not arrive. The body is done. The mind is not. This experience has a name in sleep medicine, and it is becoming less of an anomaly and more of a pattern for a growing number of people.

In an interview with Health and Me, Dr Shivani Swami, Additional Director – Pulmonology, CK Birla Hospitals, Jaipur, decoded the role of cortisol in affecting sleep and rest patterns.

The explanation starts with cortisol

Stress, whether from work pressure, unresolved worry, or the accumulated friction of a demanding day, keeps cortisol levels elevated into the evening. Cortisol is the hormone that keeps the brain alert and ready to respond. It has an important job during the day. The problem arises when it does not fall away as the evening progresses, which is what stress prevents. The brain receives no signal that the threat has passed, so it stays primed. Sleep requires the opposite of primed.

Screen use in the hours before bed adds another layer. The blue light that phones, laptops, and televisions emit suppresses melatonin, which is the hormone the body uses to initiate sleep. This is not a subtle effect. It shifts the body’s internal clock, making the brain read the late evening as daytime. People who spend an hour on their phone before bed are, in physiological terms, making sleep harder to reach.

Read more: Just 3 Nights Of Poor Sleep Is Enough To Harm Your Heart Health

Irregular schedules create their own complications

The body’s circadian rhythm is calibrated by consistency. When sleep and wake times shift from one day to the next, the rhythm loses its anchor. The body cannot predict when rest is coming, so it stops preparing for it at a reliable time. This is why erratic schedules, even among people who eventually get enough total sleep hours, tend to produce poor-quality rest.

The mental dimension sits separately from all of this. A mind that is processing, planning, replaying, or anticipating does not transition easily into sleep, regardless of how exhausted the body is. The cognitive activity itself is stimulating enough to override physical fatigue. This is what produces the wired quality that makes the tiredness feel irrelevant.

Left unaddressed, the pattern compounds

Shortened or fragmented sleep affects concentration, mood, immune function, and judgement. People become harder to disturb at first and then more fragile over time as the deficit accumulates.

What interrupts the cycle is not dramatic. A consistent bedtime and wake time, maintained even when it feels inconvenient, gives the circadian rhythm something to organise around. Screens set aside an hour before bed allow melatonin to do its work. A brief wind-down practice, whether reading, stretching, or simply sitting quietly, gives the brain a transition rather than asking it to move directly from full engagement to sleep. Stress that is processed during the day through breathing, reflection, or physical activity is less likely to resurface at night looking for somewhere to go.

Read more: Struggling With Sleep? Neurologist Shares 3 Simple Tips For Better Sleep Health

The ideal sleep set-up

A cool, dark, and quiet sleep environment reduces the stimulation the brain has to work against. None of these are large interventions. The difficulty is the consistency they require, which is harder to maintain than any single habit change.

When the pattern persists despite reasonable adjustments, it warrants clinical attention. Chronic sleep disruption rarely resolves without some form of structured support, and the longer it continues, the wider its effects spread.

Healthcare in India must move beyond curative treatments to include preventive and holistic health, said experts today.

Speaking at a public health event in New Delhi, organized by the Illness to Wellness Foundation, the experts stressed the need to integrate technology, tradition, and lifestyle interventions to build a healthier, more resilient population in the country.

“Healthcare is not limited to curative treatments. It includes preventive, promotive, palliative, and rehabilitative care, much of which happens within the community,” said Rajesh Bhushan, Former Secretary, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare.

He called for building a culture of health-seeking behavior through community-focused programs and technology integration.

“Technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) can improve the efficiency and quality of healthcare delivery, when combined with systems of digital public health infrastructure, including the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) and the Ayushman Bharat Health Account (ABHA), which enable interoperability, longitudinal health records, and a more integrated healthcare ecosystem,” Bhushan added.

India today stands at a critical juncture in its healthcare journey. Rapid urbanization, changing lifestyles, rising stress levels, and increasing screen time are contributing to a growing burden of chronic conditions.

The experts argued that the real challenge will be to prevent disease and enable people to live healthier, longer, and more balanced lives.

Anil Rajput, Chairperson, Advisory Council, Illness to Wellness Foundation, urged for a more personalized and holistic understanding of health to build effective preventive systems.

Building Awareness On Healthcare

Dr. T S Kler, Chairman & HOD – BLK-Max Heart & Vascular Institute and Chairman Pan Max – Electrophysiology, spoke about the importance of leveraging public healthcare systems not only for treatment, but also for building awareness around health and prevention.

Amid rising cases of premature deaths linked to lifestyle risks and environmental factors, the experts advised keeping health as the foremost priority, far above all else.

"We must move towards an integrated, holistic model that combines allopathy with traditional systems of medicine, ensuring a more balanced and patient-centric approach. Equally important is the need to create greater awareness through continuous dialogue and education, as a lot can be achieved with the resources we already have,” said Dr. Kler, a Padma Bhushan awardee.

“The real shift we need is from managing disease to building a culture of health ownership. As stakeholders across sectors, our role is not just to develop systems, but to create awareness and belief that preventive and person-centric healthcare is achievable,” added Dr. Ravi Gaur, Co-Chair, FICCI Digital Health Task Force.

The event also featured a series of thematic discussions examining multiple dimensions of holistic health and well-being.

These include conversations around mental health as a critical component of productivity and daily life, with a focus on managing stress, addressing burnout, supporting students, and fostering more open and supportive environments across workplaces and educational institutions.

While the statistics for Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are alarming, what is even more alarming is the lack of recognition and timely intervention.

Many parents whose children are diagnosed with ASD have common statements – "I just didn’t ignore the signs, I did not know they were signs", when my child did not respond to his name, I just thought he was busy in play, when he did not talk by a particular age I just felt its ok, kids talk late and if it’s a boy, they always talk late. Many boys in my family spoke late."

While these statements are real, they are alarming and indicate that ASD signs are not obvious and can be missed. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) affects approximately one in 68 Indian children aged 2-9 years, equating to about 18 million individuals nationwide, with diagnoses often delayed until age 4-5 due to limited screening and awareness gaps.

This lag overlooks subtle early signs amid typical toddler behaviors and cultural norms, forfeiting a prime window for interventions that profoundly influence lifelong development.

Why Early Signs Are Overlooked

The signs for ASD should be recognized before the age of two as there are many indications which parents miss or do not want to address. Parents frequently ignore subtle cues such as reduced eye contact or lack of social smiling by 6 – 9 months sometimes calling their kids shy or introvert.

By 12 months, if a child does not respond to their name or by 14 months, there is an absence of pointing and gesturing, these are signs not to be ignored. Repetitive

behaviors like obsessively lining up toys, spinning wheels, or fixating on objects should be treated, not looked as harmless quirks or strong preferences.

Sensory sensitivities, such as aversion to loud noises, scratchy fabrics, or bright lights, manifest as tantrums or fussiness, especially in bustling Indian homes where joint families normalize varied child responses.

Surveys reveal over 50 percent of Indian cases go undiagnosed before preschool, due to lack of awareness (especially in rural areas) and stigma around developmental labels.

A Real Life Case

Aditya has some signs when he was a kid such as delayed speech, repetitive play patterns, and sensitivity to loud noises. On evaluation, it was recognized that as he grew older when academic needs increased, Aditya began experiencing several issues such as anxiety, meltdowns, and reduced school performance. He became more withdrawn and struggled with group activities.

Critical Need for Screening Before Age Three

The case in point addresses the fact that a child's brain grows super-fast before age three as neuroplasticity peaks, forming millions of connections daily that you can reshape easily.

Thus, it is essential to screen children early, which is critical so that possible signs of autism can be identified and therapies suggested effectively, boosting language, social skills, and independence. Based on the therapies, many children show signs of improvement by 50 percent compared to delayed diagnosis.

We need to understand that delaying of small issues can turn into major behavioural struggles. In India, pediatric doctors now recommend regular checks for toddlers,

especially in smaller towns, so that timely support can be administered to kids making them reach normal milestones instead of facing lifelong hurdles.

Value of Multidisciplinary Therapy

Despite early diagnosis, parents and families need to understand that there is no single approach to treating ASD. It is a combined effort of multidisciplinary teams such as

neurologists, speech therapists, occupational therapists, psychologists, and educators deliver that deliver holistic care. Sensory integration therapy addresses the sensory issues while Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) builds daily skills for children and understating routine.

Speech therapy helps the child build communication skills but despite all the therapies, it is the parent’s total understanding and acceptance that will enable success of

the therapies skills. Plexus Neuro Centre exemplifies integrated, evidence-based models prioritizing child-led progress that is backed by the support of the family.

It is important to raise awareness and reduce the spread of myths. Every child should have the right to a healthy and independent childhood, thus we urge parents to trust their instincts and act swiftly. This can be achieved through routine screenings and analysis by pediatric neurologists, participating in the right therapies and encouraging kids to have live an independent life, thereby empowering their futures