If your feelings towards New Year's Eve are closer to nervous anticipation or dread, rest assured there's actually a scientific reason for that.
Turns out feeling less than happy about New Year doesn't just mean you're a hopeless pessimist. It's actually caused by a number of external factors, and unsurprisingly, the pressure to have a brilliant time is one of them.
YouTube channel AsapSCIENCE posted a video explaining exactly why your New Year's will suck (their words, not ours) and it actually makes a lot of sense. Here's what we learned.
Fantasy vs. reality
A study asked people about their New Year's Eve, and a whopping 83% of respondents said they felt let down. "Not because of their actual plans," explains the video, "but because they ended up having less fun than they expected."
Forced fun
It turns out when you try too hard to have fun, you could be making things a whole lot worse. Another study found that people trying to make themselves feel a certain way while listening to music found it harder to enjoy themselves.
Booze
Ok, so this one is a little harder to avoid on New Year's Eve unless you're teetotal, but the more you booze, the sadder you might feel, due to the way alcohol affects the brain. Add that to the fact that you're probably already feeling bad for not having enough fun, and it's a recipe for disaster.
The video might seem pretty depressing, but knowing what could make New Year's Eve bad could be a good thing - we know that most of the negatives are down to our own perception of how it should be.
So, relax and get rid of your expectations, and remember it doesn't matter if it isn't the best night of your life. As the video points out, New Year's Eve is only 0.273972603% of the actual year.
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