Social Hangover: What It Is, How It Affects Us, And Possible Causes
No one is capable of living without contact with others, the human being is a social animal by nature. However, some people are more social than others, and others feel more comfortable focusing on their internal thoughts and ideas, rather than what’s going on outside. But absolutely all of us need to interact with others, although some contacts can wear us down if we get too involved.
Our brains consume a lot of resources when we interact with others, even if it is something we do for fun in our free time. After a period of socialization, our body needs to rest, and so does our mind. We don’t want to go out anymore because we need to recover.
Some people are more susceptible to this type of burnout that occurs after spending time around others and may need to take additional steps to recover.
In this article we talk about social hangovers what exactly they are and we expose their most frequent causes.
Social hangover is not a medically recognized syndrome; It’s just the usual way of describing the state of tiredness that occurs after social interaction.
Spending time with other people can produce a hangover-like state. Physical, mental and emotional exhaustion, along with irritability and apathy, are symptoms of the so-called social hangover. When it occurs, the mind takes longer to process the information it receives, movements slow down and even, as in the physical hangover caused by alcohol, Headaches or muscle aches may occur due to the stress of socializing.
The term social hangover gained popularity after months of confinement and the lifting of social distancing measures decreed during the recent COVID-19 crisis. The progressive return to normality has made us all interact again, but this time in an excessive way, different from usual, to recover the supposedly lost time.
But after being isolated for a long period of time, constantly connecting with people can have negative psychological effects, such as a social hangover. Something that may seem paradoxical because contact with others was what we wanted most during the pandemic.
In his work Politics, Aristotle argued that humans are social beings by nature. While all people need to connect with others in a meaningful way, the degree of this need differs for each person. The amount of social interaction that extraverted people need is greater than that of more introverted people which focus more on their interior, rather than what is happening outside, including the rest of the world.
Furthermore, our need for connection may be different depending on our moment in life. Our context can also influence how we behave and react when we are with other people. It may be that in times of stress or transition we end up more tired after spending time with people.
Causes of social hangover
When we experience a social hangover, we feel lethargic, have trouble concentrating, and are in a bad mood. Our minds and bodies seem to be overwhelming us, and we don’t want to talk to anyone or go out.
Spending time with other people, even if we are not aware of it, requires effort, we have to consider: what we are saying, doing, how others see us, how we see ourselves, listening to what other people tell us, developing a response, interpret non-verbal language… etc. As we see, there are many cognitive resources that we invest when interacting with others. Normally, after socializing excessively, our body and mind say enough is enough.
The term social hangover describes this physical and mental exhaustion, although It is not a diagnosable medical condition. It is related to other conditions and diagnoses.
For example, chronic exhaustion – or burnout – is a common occurrence and is considered a psychological syndrome. This usually manifests itself in the workplace, when an employee has been subjected to a long period of stress. Although chronic burnout can also occur in other areas of life, it responds to two key elements.
First of all, emotional exhaustion It is a state of psychological overload, one has the feeling that all emotional resources have been exhausted, which implies feeling incapable of assuming conflicts or responsibilities.
Secondly is depersonalization: When we experience too much social interaction, we can feel dissociated or disconnected from our environment. This is called depersonalization and can manifest itself with the appearance of negative feelings and attitudes towards the environment.
There are different factors, which do not indicate the existence of any underlying pathological condition, that can favor the appearance of an emotional hangover in some people.
Some people have personalities that make them more likely to suffer from a social hangover. According to some specialists, introversion is the personality trait most indicative of the risk of suffering from social hangovers or, in other words, periods of exhaustion if one socializes excessively.
Introverted people tend to focus on their inner world: reflection, introspection and creativity. And they need these activities to recover their energy. Introverted people, who are in constant social interactions, can end up feeling exhausted.
An introvert has to divide their individual time with periods of being in company, to reach a balance in which they do not feel isolated but neither overwhelmed.
2. Demotivation
Being with others fulfills many important functions: it improves our self-esteem and self-concept, makes us feel connected, helps us let off steam, and releases tension. When the situation or our own personality causes this reinforcing effect to disappear, social hangovers can frequently appear.
Normally, this lack of interest in socialization occurs when we are sad, stressed, exhausted or unmotivated, at these times it can be difficult to enjoy the company of others. If this lack of ability to enjoy contact with others persists over time, It is advisable to go to a specialist to determine if there may be any condition that causes it, such as depression or stress.
Exhaustion could also be derived from the emergence and maintenance of conflictive relationships. If we are surrounded by people who are overly dramatic, who are always fighting, or who never stop complaining, at some point our resources for dealing with emotions will run out and emotional exhaustion will set in.
3. HSP people (highly sensitive)
Highly sensitive people are susceptible to any change in the environment, so socializing can wear them out more than others. The nervous system of sensitive people is highly receptive to external influences receives more information and a greater amount of stimuli.
These people react to lights, sounds and touch more intensely, and they also pick up non-verbal cues and emotional information from other people more easily. This sensitivity requires additional processing resources and can make spending time interacting with others more draining.
Spending too much time socializing, even if we are not aware of it, can be unhealthy. Even extroverted, non-highly sensitive and motivated people can suffer from a social hangover if they spend too much time with too many people. It is key to find the balance between spending time with others and with yourself to balance energy levels.
For introverted or especially sensitive people, it is important to time socialization and not try too hard during interactions, something especially difficult because they usually have fewer social resources than extroverts.
5. Pathological conditions
There are different psychological disorders that can alter your mood and affect your relationships with others. Depression is often accompanied by lethargy or irritability, which makes one not want to be around others. Besides, the loss of the ability to enjoy (anhedonia) makes socialization difficult.
People who suffer from disorders that involve hypervigilance or control of the environment can end up exhausted in any social situation, since they exhaust their resources very quickly. These types of disorders need psychological treatment.
Conclusion
If we feel hungover from socializing too much, it’s because we’ve been interacting with people too frequently.
All of us, if we push ourselves beyond our social limits, can experience a social hangover. Each person’s needs are different in terms of time and frequency of social interactions. It is important to recognize what ours are so as not to exhaust our emotional resources and suffer from social hangovers.
However, to find the middle ground between loneliness and socialization – key to maintaining both our physical and mental health – we will have to take some time and give up certain activities.
Learning to say no to certain plans is essential to avoid the exhaustion that appears after spending time with others. Also maintaining our own space and dedicating personal time to ourselves is essential to recover the energy we need. Taking a nap, or doing things we enjoy like reading or exercising, can reduce the risk of emotional hangovers.
