(Without losing your sense of self)
December comes with its own mythology: the expectation that you should be more social, more cheerful, more available, more excited, and somehow less affected by noise, lights, sugar, alcohol, family dynamics, work deadlines, or the emotional turbulence this month seems to collect.
- If you are someone who feels a tightness in your chest when December arrives, you are not alone.
- If you feel overwhelmed at the idea of multiple gatherings… you are not being a ‘party pooper’.
- If you find yourself wandering into the kitchen at parties to take a breather, you are not antisocial.
- If you suddenly crave sugar, or feel overstimulated, or need wine to soften your edges, you don’t have adrenal fatigue!
You are simply a human with a nervous system, and a beautifully evolved, exquisitely sensitive, sometimes overstretched system that has been doing its very best for far too long.
December can feel like it is not only asking for more of you socially but also asking for more of you physiologically.
When you understand what your body is trying to manage, you begin to relate to yourself with more compassion, more humour, and maybe even less shame (if that is how you feel).
The nervous system perspective on why December can feel too much
Your nervous system has one job, yes, one job and that is to keep you SAFE. It is not to keep you:
- happy
- festive
- agreeable
- sociable on command
- excited about Secret Santa
- calm in a noisy room
- tolerant of small talk with people you barely know
- enthusiastic about group photos
It is about keeping you SAFE.
The nervous system keeps you safe through a process called neuroception, the constant, unconscious scanning of your environment for cues of safety or danger.
December can ‘confuse’ neuroception because everything becomes unpredictable.
Crowds, noise. lighting, social expectations, alcohol, sugar, emotions, memories, family stories you hoped would stay buried. The pressure to perform ‘joy’, the pressure to belong, the pressure to be ‘fine’. Just typing this makes me want to go for a walk in nature!
Your body reads unpredictability as a threat. Remember this is a primal response, not a personal issue.
When environments change too quickly, too often, or too intensely, the body shifts into a mild form of ‘survival mode’, a background hum of hyper-vigilance that many people mistake for anxiety, introversion, or maybe ‘just not being good at Christmas’.
It is not that you are ‘bad at Christmas’, or a party pooper, or a ‘humbug’.
It is usually that Christmas, well modern Christmas, is rather demanding on human physiology.
Connection, co-Regulation and the ‘anchor’ person
One of the gentlest ways to support yourself in these environments is to identify what we call your ‘anchor person’. Oh my, don’t we just ‘love’ that anchor person? That human whose presence softens your nervous system with a small but powerful sense of safety.
Let’s just get this clear, you don’t have to cling to them and you don’t even have to speak to them all night. However, just knowing they are there allows your body to downshift.
This has nothing to do with personality but with biology. Most people tend to see it as a personality trait, but either way, you now know it is biology.
Humans regulate through other humans and we always have!
A warm voice, kind eyes, soft prosody which is the subtle musicality of a voice that doesn’t feel threatening. These tell your nervous system, ‘you are okay, you don’t have to be on guard’.
If you have ever positioned yourself near one particular friend at a party, and suddenly everything felt more manageable, that was your nervous system finding a ‘tether in the storm’.
Finding your physical edge
If you are someone who gets easily overwhelmed by crowds, try standing or sitting with your back to a wall. When nothing can happen behind you, your brain no longer has to monitor 360 degrees of movement, noise, facial expressions, or potential ‘threats’.
Your breathing is calmer, your posture is softer. Hyper-vigilance softens when your environment is not so ‘overwhelming’.
The role of food
Of course we had to drop in food, as we are not just a psychological coaching School but a School that also teaches about food!.
December is famous for its buffet tables, mince pies, cheese boards, and prosecco fountains. But what is not acknowledged as much as it should is how profoundly food affects the nervous system.
When your blood sugar drops, because you skipped a meal, ate too little proteinProtein is one of the three main macronutrients, alongside fats and carbohydrates, yet for many years it was often the forgotten member of the trio. More recently, protein has become something of a celebrity in the nutrition world, appearing in everything from snack bars and cereals to coffee and desserts. Whilst the marketing can sometimes get a little carried away, the truth is that protein is essential for human health. Every cell in the body relies on it. Protein helps build and repair tissues, supports immune function, forms enzymes and hormones, transports nutrients, and helps maintain muscle mass, particularly as we age., relied on caffeine, or got swept up in the da meeting deadlines, your body releases adrenaline and cortisol to bring your glucose back up. This hormonal surge feels identical to anxiety:
- Your heart races.
- Your thoughts speed up.
- You feel unsettled, jittery, ungrounded, and overstimulated.
And in this state, you find yourself reaching for:
- sugar
- white carbs
- alcohol
- anything that promises fast relief
Because your body wants ‘stability’.
“This is where the power of protein comes in. Protein is not just about looking ‘ripped’ or gaining muscle to increase those insulin receptors, thankfully it has many more functions in your body.
The amino acids from proteins become the very neurotransmitters that help you feel calm, motivated and emotionally steady
GABA is your body’s natural ‘calming’ neurotransmitter. It helps quiet the noise and reduce that ‘on-edge’ and overstimulated feeling. Your brain makes GABA from the amino acid glutamine.
Dopamine is the neurotransmitter that gives you motivation, focus, drive, and a sense of pleasure. It helps you feel interested in life rather than flat or overwhelmed. Dopamine is made from the amino acid tyrosine.
Serotonin is the chemistry behind emotional balance, sleep, resilience, and your ability to cope when the season or party gets loud or messy. Your body produces serotonin from the amino acid tryptophan.
These amino acids come from food. Food becomes chemistry, chemistry becomes mood, mood becomes behaviour, behaviour becomes the story we tell ourselves about who we are.
So when you walk into a social event nourished, even with a simple boiled egg, a handful of nuts, Greek yogurt, or a piece of salmon on oatcakes, you carry with you a brain that has the ingredients to regulate itself.
- Your feelings are not so ‘jumpy’.
- Your reactivity softens.
- Your need to escape diminishes.
- The sugar table loses its magnetic pull.
- And the glass of wine no longer feels like a lifeline…
…because your body already feels safe.
The unrefined salt trick: regulation in a glass
There is a tiny, almost magical trick we wish everyone knew, but hey, we do our best through our blogs.
Put a pinch of mineral salt into your water before a gathering. Just a pinch.
Salt supports adrenal function, hydration, blood pressure stability, and electrolyte balance, ALL of which help the body feel contained rather than buzzy.
You will discover that what you thought was an urge to drink alcohol was actually an attempt to quiet the internal dys-regulation.
You’re not craving wine, you are craving relief. Salt often gives the body enough grounding that the craving evaporates.
This is psychological coaching integrated with nutritional medicine.
You regulate through physiology, not through willpower
No one is meant to override their bodies through sheer force of character.
We are supposed to regulate ourselves through:
- food
- boundaries
- routines
- co-regulation
- humour
- self compassion
When you support your biology, your psychology follows and when you support your psychology, your biology follows, as long as the raw ingredients (like those amino acids, minerals etc) are all there.
When your nervous system feels held, you feel held.
This is the heart of the work we teach at the New School. Health is not about pushing through, but it is about listening inward and learning to meet yourself where you are.
Rapid Relief Homeopathy
And if you’d like a little homeopathic backup before stepping into the festive chaos, here are some ‘party prep’ remedies that might help your system feel steadier:
- Aconite: when the idea of going out hits you like a shock wave and your heart is already racing.
- Argentum nitricum: when your nerves turn into ‘what if?’ loops and your stomach joins in with excitement.
- Arsenicum album: when you are anxious about the details, the people, the timing, and whether anything might go wrong.
- Gelsemium: when you are dreading the event, feel heavy or shaky, and would prefer to stay home with a blanket.
- Lycopodium: when the first hour terrifies you, but you know you will warm up once you actually get there.
- Nux vomica: when you’ve been working too hard, running on caffeine, and feel irritable before you’ve even arrived.
- Phosphorus: when you are easily overstimulated by noise, lights, and everyone’s emotions at once but you are such a people person, FOMO is your downfall.
- Pulsatilla: when you don’t want to go alone and need reassurance, gentleness, or companionship to face the crowd, some call you clingy!
More in our Rapid Relief Homeopathy book.
A little festive homeopathic humour
Medicine comes in many forms, and one of the most underestimated is a good sense of humour. Laughter softens the body, loosens tension, and gives the vagus nerve a gentle nudge toward regulation. It doesn’t always come in bottles or dropper lids or small sugar pills.
Every festive gathering has its archetypes, the characters who make you laugh, or roll your eyes, or pray for an exit strategy.
- The Nux vomica type, fuelled by coffee and competition, speaking loudly enough for neighbouring villages to hear.
- The Platina type, whose mere presence suggests we should be grateful they joined us mere mortals.
- The emotional Ignatia type, who wants to process heartbreak by the canapés.
- The Lachesis type, who flirts with anything that generates body heat.
- The Calc carb host who wants everyone fed, warm, and safe.
- The Nat mur kitchen-helper who disappears without saying goodbye.
- And, of course, the Aurum host whose décor costs more than your Christmas budget combined.
We name them with affection and we laugh because we recognise ourselves in each one.
Humour reduces the overwhelm and reminds us that we are all just humans doing our best.
Remember…
If December feels loud, messy, emotional, overstimulating, or draining:
- Your nervous system is doing it’s best.
- Your sensitivity is not a weird personality trait.
- Your need for grounding does not make you a hippy.
Your mind-body is responding to a season that demands more energy than it gives.
When you stabilise your body, through food, light, electrolytes, rest, connection and kindness, your nervous system stabilises too. And from this place, you can choose what you have capacity for, what you don’t have capacity for, and what you genuinely want this season to mean.
Support your physiology, even in small, gentle ways.
Feel free to forward this blog to the people in your world who might need a little nervous-system tenderness this season.
With warmth, humour, and compassion,
The New School of Nutritional Medicine Team
Learn about the Founder & Principal of the New School of Nutritional Medicine, Dr Khush Mark PhD, HERE.
