We fear the arrival of Christmas due to increased anxiety, nerves, sadness, nostalgia and so many negative emotions that surface at this time of year more than ever. Above all, we fear the most important dates, such as Christmas Eve, Three Kings or New Year’s Eve.
And it is that it is in these key days when the symptoms of anxiety worsen. That is why many people are wishing the Christmas parties were over; people who would like to disappear and return in the New Year, when everything is over. Precisely, the New Year and New Year’s Eve are crucial for anxiety. Because?
Reasons for anxiety on New Year’s Eve
If on Christmas Eve or Christmas the nerves appear because we realize that the idea of Christmas does not conform to reality, because we do not meet with the ideal family, but with our own and, because we miss those who are missing so much On New Year’s Eve, the causes of anxiety are very different.
The main reason for anxiety at the end of the year is frustration. Saying goodbye to an old year and welcoming a new one seems like the perfect time to look back . And it turns out that we do not look at all the achievements, at how well we have done, but at all those things that we have not achieved. That feeling of failure, which prevails over the others, is what causes anxiety on New Year’s Eve.
Social pressure is another cause of anxiety on New Year’s Eve. How and where we celebrate the end of the year, with whom, fulfill the rituals, follow the superstitions to enter the new year on the right foot, look fascinating on the last night… It is a fundamental moment in the form of redemption, a brief space of time in which we are obliged to meet the expectations of a whole year.
How to avoid anxiety on New Year’s Eve?
The trick to avoid anxiety on New Year’s Eve is to turn the situation around. The oriental concept of yin and yang, that everything bad has its good part, can help us to recount the year that has passed. We may not have achieved everything we wanted, but if we look around us, we will surely find many things that have made us happy, many improvements on a personal level and many, many people who have made us smile.
The annual balance necessarily has to be positive. Only in this way will we be able to remove the feeling of frustration and avoid anxiety. We must try to have a realistic vision, both of the years that has passed and of the one that is yet to come. If we are going to make a list of New Year’s resolutions, it is best to set goals that are not too high so that we can achieve them.
On the other hand, most of the superstitions to start the year or to say goodbye to it increase anxiety due to the fear of not following the ritual correctly. We cannot leave our emotional balance in the hands of trickery. Nothing happens for not eating the twelve grapes, for not toasting at the end of the year or for not kissing our partner as soon as the chimes end. This New Year we are going to be happy, we are going to be calm and we are going to feel good, no matter what happens on New Year’s Eve.
