If you suffer from anxiety, festival season can be
a nightmare, so here are our five top tips to enjoy
festival season this summer
Hi, I’m Roberta
My top tip would be to find your own space
at a music festival
So I think there’s always this temptation to follow the crowd
I think like just stand where
you feel happy when you’re
watching music so, whether that’s at the front or the back
just find where you’re comfortable and then
arrange a meeting point with your friends afterwards
I think that it can, yeah just ruin your whole festival
experience if you’re standing where you’re
not comfortable basically
It can be really good to have some kind of signal
so that you can find your friends again
It’s easy enough to say:
‘Oh meet you at the back of the crowd’
but if you’re at Glastonbury or something and there’s
millions of people
So me and my friends do the crab, so we’re
standing doing this
*laughing*
So that you know that there’s probably not gonna be another
nutter doing the crab
Hello, I’m Phoebe
and I think that I personally struggle a lot trying to get my
own head out of some worried thoughts when I’m at a festival
so I rely on more subconscious stuff like the sense of smell
So most people who have got a smell that they associate with
a really happy place or a person
So I recommend taking a body cream or a perfume
with you to a festival that you can spray or rub on yourself
whenever you’re having a bit of a worried moment
and it’ll take you to that person or place, and then
you feel happier without even having to kind of
force yourself into it
So how did you find out about that?
My mum recommended it to me, so I'm really lucky that she's a therapist
So that works really well when I'm feeling a bit worried
but yeah she thought that it was a great idea and I didn't really start to use
it until I went to bigger festivals, more crowds, more people
and then I thought ok, I need something to lift me out of that
Rubbed a little bit on myself, and then I'm the weirdo walking through
the crowd going *sniffs*, but it's okay, it really works
*laughing*
- I mean, if it works!
It does, it does
Hi, I’m Lisa-Marie
I guess for me, one of the most important things for
keeping calm at festivals is to know how I’m getting home
Obviously the bigger festivals and the ones out in the
countryside can be a bit of a disorientating experience
You know, you lose your friends, you lose your phone signal
but knowing at the end of the night
‘This is where I’m headed, this is how I’m getting back’
has always made it a lot easier for me to get through the day
when things start to get a bit more chaotic
It's that sense of control that I think is really important to a lot of us that
are dealing with anxiety
And it can sound a bit of, you know, a fun-killer
you go to these events to let loose and have a good time
but just taking those little steps to make it easier for yourself
Hi, I’m Halina
and I think one of the most important things for me is
keeping hydrated, and I know it’s one of those things that
you just think ‘Urgh this is so incredibly dull’
but it’s really not
When you’re dehydrated it can kinda replicate the same
feelings as it would be if you have anxiety
So you can get dizziness and headaches, and your heart
can race, and - and a dry mouth
Totally! And you get totally tired as well
Once you feel a bit tired as well, it's really tempting to go heavy hitting
with the caffeine, but actually that can make you even more anxious
and give you all the shakes, but actually if you drink water
when you're feeling a bit tired, that's probably more affective than caffeine
because you get the hit without it giving you the *shakes*
It's quite, it's almost really, like sad in a certain way that we feel
that we've got to drink in order to enjoy ourselves but
half the time, see if I hear a band I love, it does not matter
I get so excited, and it almost takes the anxiety away as well, so it's fantastic
Hi guys, I’m Emily
I think my top tip would be to just be honest with the
people you’re with and be honest with your friends
Even though I get that you don’t want to, you know
ruin people’s fun, but if they’re your friends
they’re going to, you know they’re gonna want to help you
And I think, at least for me personally, knowing that
the people I’m with know about the way I deal with big crowds
and you know, loud music and that sort of thing
It can really help you, yeah make you feel more comfortable
Your friends aren’t mind readers, it’s really easy to just be like
‘Oh you should know how I feel’
but actually unless you communicate that with them
then they’re not gonna know
And I’ve been at festivals where I’ve had complete
strangers just be so kind and helped me either to the back
or get water or something, and it’s been really
quite, you know, surprising
Just shows you what you can do when you open up
and as you said, as scary as it can be, you know
it’s worth it definitely