Faced with the despair that the period of confinement meant for many, the need arose to make up for the supposed lost time. It seems that the return to normality is forcing us to stay, travel, party, make plans in every spare time … It is as if we had to live as if there was no tomorrow, as if another pandemic were going to corner us.
But this need to constantly interact after a period of restrictions can have psychological consequences, such as anxiety or total exhaustion, that can make us feel completely destroyed. How is it possible that we could have come to this if socializing was what we wanted the most a few months ago?
The human being is social by nature
Humans are, as Aristotle said in his work The Politics, social beings by nature. However, we must point out that there are degrees in this need to relate, that is, it is not the same for all people.
Extroverts need it more, unlike more introverts. Therefore, we are all social, but the need to relate at all times (and the individual reactions and behaviors derived from it) may differ. In addition, the context can interfere, as the psychologist Elliot Aronson collected in his book The social animal: introduction to social psychology. And in the case at hand, it has done so in spades, but this can have great consequences.
Socializing can be exhausting
Without a doubt, in the last year and a half we have lived in a different context than usual. There was a forced stop in social contacts (except online). In this scenario, the psychological affectation has gone through different phases of coping.
Introverts may have had a better time because they didn’t need to be involved as much. Before confinement, the psychologist Arnie Kozak proposed that the social hangover characterized these people whose emotional and psychological exhaustion was high due to the effort of relating to other people.
However, this term has become popular after the pandemic because, to a different extent, the progressive return to normality causes us all to relate again, but this time in an excessive way, different from the usual, to recover the assumption lost time. And this is how, without realizing it, one day we wake up as if it were a hangover.
Surely we do not realize it but when we socialize we invest a lot of cognitive resources. We must think about what we say, what we do, how they see us, how we see ourselves, listen carefully to what others say to us, perceive the non-verbal signals in the whole environment … As we see, it can be exhausting!
In reality, ‘social hangover’ is a popular term, not a diagnostic one, although it does relate to diagnostic constructs.
In psychology we speak of burnout or syndrome of being burned out. It usually refers to a manifestation or response to chronic stress that is usually associated with work environments. However, it can also occur in other contexts if two fundamental factors exist.
The first is emotional exhaustion, that is, the extreme consumption of one’s own emotional resources.
The second, depersonalization, which is manifested by negative attitudes towards the environment. And this is what happens when we feel saturated with social activity.
Symptoms of social hangover
But how do we know if we are experiencing a social hangover situation? Well, this emotional experience can occur in contexts in which our social activity grows exponentially.
Let’s take Christmas as an example. If we want to visit all the friends, family and other commitments, we may end up exhausted and need some time to ourselves.
This situation can be normal. However, there will be a psychological affectation if we end up feeling in a bad mood, exhausted and with difficulty concentrating; when we feel that lack of energy and it seems that the body and mind are heavy and slower than usual; when we do not feel like talking to anyone and we feel terrible “laziness” to meet, talk to someone or have to go out.
Learn to say ‘no’ to deal with the social hangover
To face this situation we must not simply stop socializing because we are social beings. However, we will need some time to readjust until we find our balance.
For this we will have to learn to say “no” to certain activities. This is necessary because one of the main causes of this type of hangover is not knowing how to refuse when, for example, we are invited to a plan during the weekend. In these cases, we end up accepting it for not displeasing anyone, even though at that moment we are not strong enough to enjoy it.
Therefore, we must promote assertiveness, which will allow us to express ourselves with sincerity without muddying our social relationships.
Remember that if we feel socially hangover it is because we have maintained a very high social activity and, therefore, we can regulate our interactions, in the same way that we should do with our emotions. In fact, since it is not a syndrome, adjustment is easier.
Rest can be the best ally
At the same time, we can recover daily by maintaining our own space at specific times. For example, taking a nap, taking time to do things we like like reading, exercising, etc. Another option is to make plans that include part social interaction and part time off.
The key is to select what we want to do based on our psychosocial characteristics and needs. In this way we can distribute the time to enjoy with others and have our recovery time.
Building self-esteem and assertiveness is especially important in our youth and adolescents, who have received less attention and social support during confinement. This group may suffer a greater psychological impact from the social hangover because they feel more intensely the need to make up for this lost time.
Only then can we enjoy what we do without having to attend to all the demands that surround us, without living as if there were no tomorrow. Now let’s enjoy our relationships so that social support remains our best psychosocial health asset.
This article has been published in
‘The Conversation’.
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