The compulsion to please others is inherently female. Say what you like about the evolution of gender roles and power dynamics between men and women in the modern age – everywhere you look, people-pleasing does not bear the same weight across genders.
Thanks to a combination of factors – social conditioning, emotional vigilance, and straightforward sexism – women have a propensity to bend to the will of others much more than men, often putting their own needs to one side to prioritise (and please) others. This can mean saying “yes” when we mean “no”, taking on additional responsibilities we don’t have the time or energy for, and never making time to do something just for ourselves, seeing it as self-indulgent and wasteful.
Now, research has found how much of a toll this is taking on our bodies, particularly if your people-pleasing involves something known as “self-silencing,” ie, when you suppress your own emotional needs, overly monitor your behaviour, and refrain from self-expression to avoid upsetting others.
One study conducted by the University of Plymouth found that women with fibromyalgia were more likely to report lifelong patterns of self-silencing. Additionally, a study of a group of Chinese university students in 2025 and published in PsyCh Journal found that higher levels of people-pleasing tendencies were significantly associated with lower levels of mental wellbeing, highlighting their potential impact on students’ psychological health.
As Easter weekend approaches, and women around the country inevitably prepare to host families, children, and friends, how can we go about ensuring everyone has a lovely time without compromising our own needs and putting our own health at risk as a result? First, it’s important to understand where the people-pleasing compulsion actually comes from. And remembering that this may differ between people depending on their childhood, their confidence levels, and the network they’re surrounded by.
“People-pleasing is a learned behaviour, our brain and nervous system are always scanning our environment for threats, which can include rejection, conflict, and disapproval,” explains Ruth Kudzi, coaching psychologist, and the author of How to Feel Better. “On perceiving or anticipating a threat, many women have learned the ‘fawn’ response, where they pretend all is okay to avoid any fallout. By being agreeable and saying yes, they often feel relief and receive positive reinforcement, therefore releasing dopamine and reinforcing neural pathways, embedding these behaviours in the brain.”
It doesn’t help that, for the most part, women are rewarded for this behaviour. Hence why we may continue doing it. Of course, we’re going to keep people-pleasing if we’re constantly being told how happy we’re making everyone around us; being thanked and receiving appreciation is like kryptonite to a people-pleaser’s brain. If you’ve just spent three hours creating and running an Easter egg hunt for your family but forgotten to eat lunch, nobody is going to come up to you to remind you. They’ll simply thank you and ask if you’ll be doing the same next year.
“This may lead to a pattern of behaviour where a person’s self-worth is linked to being needed and approved of by others,” explains Bonnie Lambert, psychiatric nurse practitioner at Crestview Recovery. “In a clinical context, particularly for individuals who have a history of trauma, being pleasing to others is a survival mechanism.”
In the long term, the ramifications of this kind of behaviour can be severely detrimental, particularly in cases when it’s so deeply entrenched that we might not even be aware we’re doing it. Again, this is common. “I have worked with women who accept that they’re a ‘people pleaser’, but the sense of nurturing their responsibilities and obligations feels somewhat natural to them, which is historically linked to both biology and societal expectations,” says psychologist Dr Candice O’Neil.
Over Easter, this can get worse, particularly because of how many people you tend to be surrounded by – and therefore feel obligated to please. This is especially true if you plan to be around young children. “Children will be home more, and we might naturally feel responsible for them having had a good time away from the monotony of school, and to be socially engaged,” adds Dr O’Neil. “There will typically be much less time to invest in our own individual emotional wellbeing at a particularly social time of year, and for parents, we might feel responsible for our children’s emotional wellbeing.”
If you’re a people-pleaser, you don’t just attend Easter; you run Easter
Jane Ollis, medical biochemist and founder of Neurotech Company SONA
It can take a serious toll on your nervous system in particular, triggering stress responses that can lower your immunity and lead to illnesses down the line. “If you’re a people-pleaser, you don’t just attend Easter; you run Easter,” says Jane Ollis, medical biochemist and founder of Neurotech Company SONA. “I sometimes think of it as becoming the central nervous system for the entire family. You’re regulating everyone, smoothing tensions, and making sure no one feels left out. From a neuroscience perspective, that is a huge amount of emotional labor, effectively co-regulating multiple nervous systems at once. It’s a lovely gesture, but it also means your own system never truly switches off. ”
There are ways to combat all this, and ensure you’re giving your mind and body some much-needed rest, though it will take some hard unlearning. Firstly, it’s important to recognise when you can feel your brain switching into people-pleasing gear. “That lightning-fast, ‘yes, of course!’ before you’ve even checked in with yourself is your clue,” says Ollis. “It’s often a fast, subcortical response triggered before the thinking brain has caught up.”
Once you’ve identified what your brain is doing, normalise the process of challenging yourself. This might involve buying yourself a bit of time, telling someone you’ll get back to them rather than responding straight away. It could also be worth trying to understand how your body has responded to what is being asked of you: do you feel anxious? Is your heart beating faster? Has your breath shortened? If so, take this as a sign from your body not to proceed. “The real shift happens when you stop outsourcing your decision-making to everyone else’s needs,” adds Ollis.
Of course, all this is easier said than done. The good news is that once you’ve started subverting these patterns, it will become easier to continue doing so. “The shift is subtle but powerful: moving from managing the external environment to creating a sense of internal stability,” notes psychologist and life coach, Dominique Stelling. “In doing so, a woman realises she can remain deeply caring and connected, without abandoning herself to keep the peace.”
Not abandoning oneself sounds like as good an Easter weekend goal as any – especially knowing the health benefits. Good luck.