The Hidden Reason the Holidays Trigger Anxiety and Shutdown

If the holidays reliably leave you feeling anxious, exhausted, numb, or disconnected, there’s a good chance it’s not because you’re “bad at joy,” ungrateful, or doing something wrong.

For many people, the holidays don’t trigger happiness — they trigger the nervous system. If you are suffering right now from that familiar holiday burn out, anxiety, and depression, you're not alone. 

This time of year often activates old attachment wounds, unresolved grief, and survival responses that don’t usually carry this much pressure the rest of the year. The body doesn’t experience the holidays as a neutral calendar event; it experiences them as a relational and emotional environment shaped by memory, expectation, and past outcomes.

Here’s what’s really happening beneath the surface.

Why the Holidays Are So Activating for the Nervous System

The holidays create a perfect storm of nervous system stressors, many of which stack on top of one another without much space to recover.

Heightened expectations, forced closeness, family roles reactivated, social comparison, financial pressure, and visible reminders of loss or absence all converge at once. Even for people who generally feel regulated, this level of stimulation can push the nervous system into overdrive.

Your nervous system doesn’t respond to the story that the holidays are “supposed to be joyful.”
It responds to pattern recognition.

If past holidays included emotional unpredictability, disappointment, tension, loneliness, abandonment, or feeling unseen, your body remembers. That memory lives in the nervous system, not just the mind. So when the season arrives, your system prepares for what it learned to expect — even if your adult self is trying to stay positive.

Anxiety Isn’t the Problem — It’s the Alarm

Holiday anxiety is often misunderstood as the issue itself, when in reality it’s a signal.

Anxiety is your nervous system saying: Something here feels unsafe, overwhelming, or too much.
It’s not trying to ruin the holidays — it’s trying to protect you.

This can show up as racing thoughts, dread, irritability, hyper-vigilance, trouble sleeping, or heightened emotional reactivity. The system is scanning for threat, not celebration, because historically this time of year may have required emotional armor.

Trying to “calm down” without listening to what the alarm is pointing to often backfires.

Why Some People Shut Down Instead

Not everyone responds to holiday stress with anxiety. Some nervous systems move in the opposite direction — into shutdown.

If your system learned that expressing needs, emotions, or distress didn’t help — or actually made things worse — it may default to a freeze response instead of activation. This is especially common for people who learned to stay quiet, self-sufficient, or emotionally contained to get through difficult environments.

Shutdown can look like numbness, fatigue, withdrawal, disconnection, or a pervasive feeling of “I just want this to be over.” This isn’t laziness or depression. It’s a protective strategy that once helped you endure something overwhelming.

The Attachment Layer Most People Miss

The holidays are deeply relational, which means they tend to spotlight attachment dynamics — whether we want them to or not.

This time of year highlights who shows up for you, who doesn’t, where effort feels mutual, and where it doesn’t. It can quietly amplify feelings of being chosen, overlooked, relied upon, or emotionally responsible for others.

If you carry attachment wounds around abandonment, inconsistency, emotional labor, or being the one who “keeps the peace,” the holidays can reopen those loops quickly. This is especially true if you’re single when you didn’t expect to be, partnered but lonely, returning to family dynamics that haven’t evolved, or expected to perform closeness that doesn’t feel authentic.

Your body often feels this mismatch long before your mind can articulate it.

Why “Just Be Grateful” Doesn’t Work

Gratitude is often offered as a cure-all during the holidays, but it doesn’t regulate a nervous system that feels unsafe.

In fact, forcing gratitude can increase distress by invalidating your real experience, creating shame for having a reaction, or pushing emotions underground where they show up later as anxiety or shutdown.

Regulation comes from safety, pacing, choice, and honesty — not positivity or pressure.

What Actually Helps During the Holidays

Name what’s real

Start by naming what’s real, even quietly to yourself. You don’t need to dramatize it or explain it to everyone — just stop pretending everything is fine if it isn’t.

Lower exposure

Less time, fewer events, earlier nights, or more breaks is not failure. It’s wisdom and self-attunement. Lowering exposure can be deeply regulating. 

Create micro-safety

Small rituals, familiar foods, walks, early nights. Create micro-moments of safety: familiar foods, grounding routines, walks outside, time alone, or sensory comforts your body associates with calm.

Anchor to the present

Remind your system: This is now. I am not trapped. I have choice.  Anchor yourself to the present moment. Gently remind your system: This is now. I’m not trapped. I have choice.

Let yourself opt out emotionally

You don’t have to process everything this week.  Emotional pacing matters.

A Reframe That Matters

The holidays don’t reveal what’s wrong with you. They reveal what still needs care.

If your nervous system is reacting, it’s because it learned something once that helped you survive. Now it just needs updating — slowly, compassionately, and without force.

You’re not broken. You’re listening.  And that’s the beginning of regulation.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q1: Why do the holidays increase anxiety even when nothing “bad” is happening?

A: The nervous system responds to memory and pattern, not just present-day circumstances. If past holidays were emotionally stressful, disappointing, or unsafe, your body may anticipate those experiences again. This can trigger anxiety even if your current situation is objectively calmer, because the nervous system is preparing for what it learned to expect.

Q2: Is feeling numb or disconnected during the holidays a sign of depression?

A: Not necessarily. Numbness and withdrawal are often signs of a freeze response, which is a protective nervous system state. It can occur when emotional expression or vulnerability previously felt overwhelming or unsupported. While it can resemble depression, it’s often situational and related to nervous system overload rather than a mood disorder.

Q3: How can therapy help with holiday anxiety and shutdown?

A: Therapy can help you understand how your nervous system and attachment history are influencing your reactions, rather than framing them as personal flaws. A relational, nervous-system-informed approach helps build regulation, boundaries, and emotional safety — so future holidays (and relationships) feel less destabilizing and more choice-based over time.