Break the Glass If You Need Tips for Managing Social Anxiety This Holiday Week

As Sherpas, we are used to being the calm, rational presence in the room, on Zoom, over the phone, or by email… However, we, too, all have commitments with various friends and family over the coming holiday week and recognize that social anxiety, even for us, is at an all-time high. In the last two months alone, Americans have had to navigate multiple COVID variants, the flu, RSV, and a host of other viruses that disproportionately impact our nation’s children. Additionally, inflation is high, school is out, and the country is being ground to a halt by one of the biggest holiday storms in decades. People and holiday packages are experiencing flight and delivery delays and cancellations – are you ready to break the glass and employ some of our favorite methods of managing social anxiety yet?

Here are our favorite strategies for managing social anxiety or simply uncomfortable/upsetting situations that arise during this particularly stressful holiday season:

• Set and maintain your boundaries
  • Commit to yourself and your host to staying for X amount of time, whether it is for a meal or a multiple-day visit
  • Know what topics you do and do not want to talk about, and be prepared to appropriately and empathically let others know when they have crossed that boundary
    • Prepare ahead of time
      • How much do you want to share regarding:
        • You, personally and professionally
        • Your mental and physical health
        • Your plans for the future, near and distant
        • Your political, economic, and social views

• Remind yourself that you are setting and maintaining these boundaries to
  • Retain your current identity (you are not a shy fifteen-year-old anymore)
  • Prevent others from using or manipulating you
  • Promote and grow healthy relationships (especially with the people who drove you to read this in the first place)
  • Allow you to practice being appropriately assertive
  • Empower your personal growth while being empathetic to others (this one takes time, thus the practice part)

• Establish practices that you can go back to in times of stress
  • Meditate
  • Go for a walk
  • Listen to music or a podcast

• Stick to your routine, especially if you’re going to be away from home
  • Exercise
  • Spending time outside (whether you realize it or not, it does helps your mindset)
  • Food and alcohol consumption
  • Bedtime rituals
    • Self-care
    • Hours of sleep

• Practice gratitude
  • Know that can be hard in times of stress, but it can help provide perspective (you and your friends and family did not put in all this effort to drive each other insane purposely)
  • Send an email to yourself with three good things that happened to you each day
  • Do something for someone for someone who made an effort to contact or include you
  • Journal
  • Practice gratitude

• Know you’re not alone
  • There’s a reason “gaslighting” is the word of the year
  • It might not feel like it, but every friend and/or family group has its hardships
  • Have a buddy you can reach out to / call to bail you out of a convo or just as a release
  • Contact us! We are in the same boat and are happy if you need to email or scream into the abyss!