holiday / family gatherings? Today our neighbor is being buried, tis the season to watch over our relatives and friends....

A 2004 study confirmed it was a nationwide phenomenon, with peaks in death coinciding around the Christmas and New Year's holidays.
-Busy revelers tend to skip their medications
-Too much salt has an even more immediate effect
-Worse is something called "holiday heart syndrome," where alcohol literally irritates the heart muscle to trigger an irregular heartbeat called atrial fibrillation. If a-fib goes unchecked for too long, it in turn can cause a stroke.
-People say they're too busy to exercise
But the holiday spike happens even in warm climates. And delay in treatment plays a role.

Hospitals may be short-staffed during the holidays, slowing the time it takes to diagnose a heart attack and start clearing the blocked artery, says Dr. Alice Jacobs of Boston University.

It's not uncommon for people to initially shrug off chest pain as indigestion - so please be aware.
3 years ago , my father had a silent heart attack with NO pain at all - he thought it was an asthma attack. So people clutching their chest's in pain is not always the norm.
http://www.americanheart.org/