How to manage your social anxiety over the festive season
The holiday season can be particularly difficult if you experience social anxiety. There can be an added pressure to be ‘sociable’, an expectation to be ‘having a good time’. It can all feel a little much for anyone.
In this article, we explore why these next few weeks can feel particularly difficult for anyone who experiences any level of social anxiety. We cover what social anxiety looks like, in case you know someone who is struggling, but may not quite understand why. And we provide some great examples of how to manage your anxiety in the run-up to Christmas, alongside some ‘in the moment’ management techniques to help you out when your anxiety is starting to creep up on you.
If you ever want to talk to anyone else who might be experiencing the same concerns as you, join our free social anxiety community.
Why can social anxiety be heightened during the holidays?
Social anxiety is characterized by what’s known as the ‘fear of negative evaluation’. This means the fear that whilst you are in a social situation, other people will negatively judge you in some way.
For many of us with social anxiety, this fear can be heightened in certain situations, such as when we are talking to strangers, or unfamiliar groups of people. It can be when we are with people out of their familiar context - such as coworkers outside of the office at the Christmas party. We might be more anxious whilst dealing with perceived authority figures, this could be our boss, our childs' teacher, or a specific friend or family member.
Our anxiety can also be focused around actions, rather than the people that we are with. For example, we might feel uncomfortable eating in front of people, dancing, or drinking whilst in a group. This time of year tends to bring with it a number of social situations that we may not choose to put ourselves in - such as a crowded shopping center, extended family gatherings, or team-building parties.
What can trigger my social anxiety?
In addition to the mental load of additional socializing, this full calendar also can bring with it certain behaviors that can worsen anxiety. This can be eating less healthily, drinking more alcohol, sleeping less, or having a broken routine.
The shorter days can also have a big impact on our mental health, with less sunlight and reduced vitamin D absorption having a detrimental effect on many people’s mood.
Social anxiety is different for everybody. The drivers of anxiety, responses to specific scenarios and our brain patterns vary from person to person, so it’s important to keep note of what tends to impact the most on your mental health, and try to keep it in mind, prioritizing your own health over the Christmas period.
What can social anxiety look like, in the run up to Christmas?
Symptoms of social anxiety can vary between us, and if you have been experiencing social anxiety for a long time, it may be something that you’ve become skilled at masking. However these are some of the common symptoms that you may encounter.
Avoidance
Avoiding unfamiliar or uncomfortable social situations. Or, if you do attend the occasion, creating a series of ‘rules’ to maintain throughout the event to keep you as comfortable as possible, such as staying in the corner, only talking to specific people that you feel more comfortable with, dressing black to avoid standing out, or sitting down throughout. These ‘rules’ are also called safety behaviors, and these can occur in many different ways.
Rumination & beliefs
You may also think about social events in excess after they have happened. This is known as ‘Rumination’, which means replaying certain aspects of an interaction that you have decided didn’t go well. For example, thinking over and over again about why you made a certain comment, or whether you offended someone. You may think about this a lot after the event in order to ‘learn’ from that behavior and how you can change it to avoid it happening again in the future. However, it’s often the case that these events are actually perceived very differently between people, and these negative views are inaccurate of what did actually occur. This means that it’s difficult to avoid these perceived negative behaviors, and the evaluation will continue in a cycle each time you are in a similar position again. This alternate interpretation of events and self assessment is referred to as ‘beliefs’.
Attention
Whilst at a social event, you may struggle to pay attention to the key components of the event, as you are focusing on your own behavior, how you are being perceived and are worrying about the symptoms that you are experiencing, in case they are noticeable to others (e.g excessing sweating, or feeling flushed).
How can I prepare for the festive season?
Looking after your physical and mental health before and during the holidays will help you with managing your mental health. Keeping up your routine as much as possible through eating at the usual times, and getting enough sleep is important for keeping your stress levels down.
Consuming too much alcohol can increase anxiety in the long-term. It does have a short-term reduction in your anxiety as it’s a depressant, however it creates an ‘anxiety rebound’ effect once it starts to wear off. Adopting a healthy attitude towards drinking over the holidays will help you manage your anxiety levels, and it’s something that our psychotherapist Dr Stuart Linke gave advice on in his recent webinar.
If you know that you are going to have a social interaction that will make your anxiety worse, set a goal for yourself ahead of time in order to counteract the safety behaviors that you may adopt. For example, if you are anxious about your Christmas party and you usually tend to stick to interacting with only one ‘safe’ friend, set yourself a goal of talking to three new people on your own at the event.
What management techniques can I use to help my social anxiety ‘in the moment’?
No matter how much preparation you do in the run-up to the festive season, you still may find that you are starting to experience more anxiety than usual. In these moments, there are management techniques that will help you distract yourself from spiraling in your anxiety, help refocus your thoughts and improve your enjoyment of the occasion.
Whilst you are interacting with others, recognise and acknowledge any negative interpretations that you are coming up with. Try to focus on something else, rather than beginning to dwell on these, or challenge them with alternate, positive interpretations.
For example, you may worry that you offended someone with something that you said, but in reality you carried on speaking for some time afterwards and she was in a good mood and very friendly all the way through, so it’s more likely that you didn’t offend her. Ask yourself if you have any evidence for your negative interpretations.
Make eye contact and smile. This might feel really difficult when we are experiencing anxiety, however once we make eye contact with someone else, it actually has a positive impact and reduces our social anxiety, as we are making a proper connection with that person and can read them much better.
It helps us challenge our negative assumptions. A good tip if this feels too much to start with, is to look at their face and move your focus around, so occasionally look in their eyes, but also at their nose, their forehead and their mouth - this won’t come across as avoiding eye contact but can feel less intimidating.
Active listening and reflecting back. This is a good way of practicing getting back into conversations when you’re starting to feel like you’re in your head too much. Try to stay present in the interaction and pay attention to what the other person is saying, rather than worrying about how you are coming across.
Reflect back their conversation to them by using phrases such as “It seems that you want to..” “I agree with this point that you just made” or “ are you saying that..”? This will help drive the conversation forward and show that you are listening.
If you would like more advice or prompts for managing social situations like these, or if you would like to talk to others who experience the same anxieties as you - join our free social anxiety community.