Holiday Social Anxiety: How To Manage Festive Gatherings

Does the thought of all those upcoming festive gatherings fill you with a sense of holiday social anxiety?

Back when I suffered with social anxiety, the initial idea of festive socials, parties and events would fill me with excitement. I’d look forward to these things, while they were still some way away. I’d enjoy the buzz as people talked about what was coming up and all the good stuff that was expected to happen. Yet as these social gatherings got closer, the dread would rise. I’d worry about everything, from what to wear to how I’d get there, whether I’d have anything to say, whether I’d make an idiot of myself and on and on. The temptation to make an excuse and avoid events would increase alongside my holiday social anxiety (although then there was the counter battle with my fear of missing out…).

For many people, the festive season brings a wealth of excitement, connection and celebration. Yet for others, December and the approach of Christmas and the New Year, creates a rising sense of dread and anxiety. There are office parties, work events, family gatherings, Christmas meals, noisy pubs, small talk and a pressure to go to everything and that you must have a good time. When you struggle with social anxiety, the holiday festive season each December can mean a struggle with feeling overwhelmed and anxious, with a heightened worry about what others think.

You can start to feel more and more anxious as social situations arise. You worry about drying up or messing up and being judged negatively. Maybe you worry about being there with no one to talk to, or that you’ll say something stupid and embarrass yourself. You might have worries about how you look and your appearance. Your social anxiety kicks in before you even get there, spikes when you are around others and then you dwell and overthink as you replay things afterwards.

Holiday social anxiety makes you worry for days beforehand about what people think. You spend way too long thinking how to avoid things or escape from things. You feel hot, tense and on edge. You may struggle to think of what to say, or you go the other way and blurt out all sorts of things without a filter. The whole time that anxious voice in your head is overthinking, observing and analysing. It can feel more like a draining ordeal that an occasion for fun and enjoyment.

Social anxiety tends to skyrocket in December. There’s the expectation, or obligation, to go to social gatherings. Social anxiety is something I help people with all year around in my Ely, Newmarket and online hypnotherapy sessions.

Yet, it’s never the social situation itself. It’s your thoughts, feelings, beliefs, expectations and habitual perceptions that create the inner anxiety, dread and fear. And that makes it possible to change those patterns to make festive socialising feel calmer and more manageable this year, and all year.

 

December and Holiday Social Anxiety

December brings with it a perfect storm for holiday social anxiety.

There can be:

• More events in the diary
• Busier venues and places
• Massively higher expectations to be there
• Worries about awkward conversations or not knowing what to say
• More pressure to be seen to enjoy yourself
• An increased fear of being judged
• An increased sense of overwhelm, overthinking and social exhaustion

When you already experience social anxiety, the extra commitments, expectations and pressures can feel stressful and overwhelming. It can be exhausting dealing with all those anxious thoughts and feelings and your social battery can run low. The festive season places your social anxiety thoughts, feelings and behaviours under a spotlight that you try to avoid the rest of the year.

 

The Social Anxiety Response

People with social anxiety tend to think they are rubbish at conversation, being around others and socialising. you may feel incapable or even unlikeable.

Yet there will be those people who you do feel more comfortable around. It could be old friends or certain family members around whom you can relax and be yourself. With these people you don’t experience the same overthinking, worry and pressure.

Social anxiety is simply your mind (incorrectly) tagging social events as threats. Your anxious survival response kicks in and tries to keep you safe by preparing you for what may happen. It could be from earlier bullying, struggling to make friends when at school, changes to the people around you, anxiety that spread into social interactions or just something you picked up, learnt and that became a habit along the way.

Holiday social anxiety means overthinking every detail, expecting the worst, feeling self conscious, avoiding the spotlight on you, avoiding situations and feeling drained and exhausted even before you get there. The anxiety stops you relaxing and thinking clearly. You struggle with listening, engaging, thinking and enjoying yourself.

Social anxiety is a learnt response that you’ve just got used to through repetition. It can be changed and you can start feeling more calm, confident and in control in social situations faster than you might expect.

 

Calmer Festive Socialising

Calmer festive socialising can be achieved by tackling your anxious thoughts and feelings. Any strategy or technique that changes, undermines, disputes, challenges or interrupts those anxious patterns start to weaken that old habitual response. There are many ideas and strategies in the articles about anxiety here on this website that can be applied to holiday social anxiety.

And you may like to take a look at the hypnosis downloads in my shop that can help you with confidence, self esteem, anxiety and calmness. As with all anxiety, the more you can interrupt the pattern of negative thoughts and imagining the worst beforehand, the better.

Here are some other small practical tips to help you to lessen social anxiety and to manage festive gatherings.

• Give yourself permission to pace yourself: Whatever your anxiety says, you don’t need to attend every event or every minute of every event. The honest truth is that people are way too busy thinking their own thoughts to pay too much attention to what you do. Choose the situations that are most important to you and allow yourself to build in rest and pacing for the others.
• Plan a calm arrival: decide what works best for you about when you first arrive. You may want to plan to arrive with someone else or some people like to get there early when things are a bit quieter, less overloaded and people arriving join you. For others, arriving when things are busier is better and you can gently adjust to the busyness and feel more comfortable without too much attention.
• Keep Conversation Simple: You aren’t the hired entertainment so you don’t have to be constantly funny, clever or entertaining. Ask questions, even if about what they’ve been up to or Christmas plans. Aim to be interested in them and not interesting to them
• Break the event into short segments: Rather than thinking about a whole evening or how many hours it will be, break things down into smaller chunks and blocks in your mind. Make it mentally manageable.
• Use the reset strategy if needed: It’s ok to have a few moments to yourself at events. Your can nip outside or find a quieter corner to have a brief pause, rest and reset.

 

Your goal is to allow yourself to proactively manage events in a way that allows you to feel the most settled. Keep in mind that science, logic and experience tell us that other people don’t spend anywhere near as much time thinking about what you do than your anxiety leads you to believe. Our brains overestimate how much others are thinking about us.

Keep this in mind this holiday season. If you are worrying about what others think then the likelihood is that they aren’t actually thinking that because they have their own stuff to think about. And if you are the only one thinking what they are thinking, and they aren’t even thinking it, then it’s an anxious party of one going on inside your head. Undermine those false perceptions.

You may also want to take a look at these articles:

Dealing with Social Anxiety – My Ely Standard Column

Combating Social Anxiety This Festive Season

 

How Hypnotherapy Helps with Social Anxiety

Hypnotherapy for social anxiety can help you to calm those anxious thoughts and feel more confident and in control before, during and after social situations. You can reduce physical symptoms and be able to manage how you feel when around others. You break the cycle of worry, fear and avoidance and instead develop habits of calmness and positivity around social situations.

You start to feel more relaxed before events and you can feel comfortable and be yourself when with others. All that old anxious mental and physical exhaustion becomes a thing of the past. You start looking forward and enjoying doing the things you want to do. You get to feel good in yourself and have the freedom to be the real you, even when around others.

I’ve helped many people with hypnotherapy for social anxiety in Ely, Newmarket and online. You start to feel more at ease around others and can spend your time thinking about other things rather than creating old scenarios inside your head. With the festive season upon us, December is often the month that people finally take the first step towards overcoming social anxiety.

You don’t need to battle through social events this year. With my support, you can feel calmer, more relaxed and more like yourself.

There’s more about hypnotherapy for anxiety here: Hypnotherapy for Anxiety and about hypnotherapy for social anxiety here: Social Anxiety Hypnotherapy

You deserve to enjoy the festive season. If social anxiety is making December stressful, then do get in touch and lets help you feel more calm, confident and in control as you make this the year you finally start relaxing and enjoying festive gatherings.

To your health and happiness,

Dan Regan

Social Anxiety Hypnotherapy in Ely and Newmarket

 

Find out more about anxiety hypnotherapy in Ely and Newmarket: Anxiety Hypnotherapy

Could you use some help with your anxiety? Struggling with anxiety, stress, worry and fear and need some help? Find out how I can help with a Complimentary Anxiety Hypnotherapy Strategy Session. Learn more here: Appointments

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And check out these popular and powerful hypnosis downloads that can start helping you right away with anxiety, confidence and more: Hypnosis Downloads