Break's up

How to cope with post-holiday blues

 

Chances are that you are reading this at the fag end of your summer vacation. That long-awaited trip to the beach or the mountains is nearly over. Or perhaps you are on the last leg of your European break. Or maybe you have just arrived at the penultimate stop on your tour of South-East Asia.

 

But no matter what your summer plans were, there is one thing all of you will experience when you come back home: the post-holiday blues. You know what I mean, of course. That conviction that the best bits of life are over, and that it’s going to be tedium all along from now. The feeling that all excitement has been leached out of your existence, and that life is going to revert to being a mundane daily slog.

 

No matter where we holiday or how, we always come back with the belief that while holidays are lived in technicolour, real life is just boring old black and white, with even more boring shades of grey thrown in between. So, who can blame us for feeling just a teeny bit out of sorts as we unpack our luggage and prepare to deal with mind-numbing quantities of dirty laundry?

 

Well, I am here to tell you that it doesn’t have to be this way. There are many tricks you can employ to make sure that you don’t experience that all-too-familiar post-holiday slump this year. Here are some, in no particular order of importance.

 

·       Don’t make the rookie mistake of coming back the night before you have to rejoin work (and your kids have to get back to school or college). Instead, schedule things so that you have a clear two days at home before normal work resumes. You need this buffer to decompress from the stress of unpacking and getting the house back into order. And you need that time to transition from holiday mode to your workday persona.

 

·       Schedule little treats for yourself and your family for when you come back home after a trip. Yes, the everyday boredom of household chores and work responsibilities will resume with a certain inevitability. But that does not mean that you can’t take an hour or even ten minutes to do something that makes you happy. This could be something as simple as ordering ice-cream for a special treat after dinner or keeping a new book on standby that you can enjoy reading on your first night back in your own bed, so that you have something to look forward to.

 

·       Recreate the best bits of your vacation in the comfort of your own home. Loved the pasta you had in that quaint little restaurant in Liguria? Try and recreate it in your kitchen over the weekend to get a taste of your holiday yet again. Enjoyed the quality time you shared with your children as you went on a road trip through America? Revive those memories by playing the same silly games or blasting the same rock songs in the car as you drive them to school. Missing the connection that you had with your significant other while on a break? Designate one day of the week as date night and try and rekindle that same magic. 

 

The holiday may be over; but there is no reason why you can’t take a break.