Drained after people: social effort and recovery

Many people describe enjoying an evening with others and feeling flat afterwards. Two studies fit that pattern: extraverted behaviour was related to higher fatigue three hours later in one ¹, and to feeling tired 2 to 3 hours later in the other ². Neither was a study of ADHD. Masking is a separate strand, and most of the studies we found on it are about autistic adults.

What the evidence says

Good now, tired later. In the first study, extraverted behaviour was related to positive mood and lower fatigue at the time. Personality traits did not moderate these relations, and the link with later fatigue was mediated by the number of people the person had encountered ¹.

Time alone lowered arousal. In research on solitude, time alone generally decreased both positive and negative high-arousal feelings, and it could lead to relaxation and reduced stress when people actively chose to be alone ³.

Camouflaging has mostly been studied in autism. In a study of adults with autism spectrum conditions, the reported consequences of camouflaging included exhaustion ⁴. In autistic adults, both camouflaging highly across contexts and switching it on in some contexts but not others were related to poorer mental health ⁵.

In ADHD, we found less research. Adults with ADHD scored higher on total camouflaging than a comparison group, but lower than autistic adults. Autism traits, not ADHD traits, were a significant predictor of camouflaging ⁶. A focus-group study of rejection sensitivity involved five UK undergraduates with ADHD diagnoses. They said they used masking to hide these feelings, and that it had caused them to withdraw from others, which often resulted in loneliness ⁷.

What we don’t know

Our sources for the fatigue and solitude findings report nothing specific to ADHD. We found no study that measured how long adults with ADHD need to recover after social time, or that tested a way of recovering.

Whether camouflaging harms mental health is also open. A study of camouflaging in autism did not find strong evidence that it was associated with the development of mental health difficulties ⁸. In the general population, camouflaging was associated with mental health presentations, and the associations ran in different directions for people with higher autistic traits and people with higher ADHD traits ⁹.

Things to try

These are options to test for yourself. None comes from an ADHD trial.

• Expect the dip a few hours on. Extraverted behaviour was related to feeling tired 2 to 3 hours later ². Leaving a gap after a social event is one way to allow for it.
• Count the people. In one study, the later fatigue was mediated by how many people the person had encountered ¹.
• Choose your time alone. Solitude could lead to relaxation and reduced stress when people actively chose it ³.
• Notice where you mask. The findings on camouflaging across contexts come from autistic adults ⁵, so treat this as something to observe.

If tiredness after social time is wearing you down, it is worth raising with a qualified professional.