These tips help to combat a low mood after a vacation

Post-holiday syndrome - These tips help to combat a low mood after a vacation

We've just had a leisurely coffee on the beach or relaxed by the hotel pool and it's already here - the first working day after our vacation. As we approach our return to work, we often experience a distinct low mood that we usually only know from Monday morning before our first coffee. We are tired, demotivated and would love to get on the next plane back to paradise.

Psychologists call this feeling "post-holiday syndrome". The fact that there is an official name for it shows that we are not alone: We are not alone in this. According to estimates, around two thirds of all employees suffer from a low mood after a vacation.

The good news is that the worst is usually over after three days. The rule of thumb is that the longer and more relaxing the time away was, the harder it is to get back to work.

What leads to post-holiday syndrome

When we come back from vacation and work calls, the "serious side of life" starts again. This means an enormous adjustment for our body and our psyche, which often leads to a bad mood and low performance, as Robin Kaufmann from the Institute for Occupational Health Consulting explains in an interview with "RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland": "Maybe you had different sleeping times on vacation and have to get used to getting up early again."

Post-holiday syndrome is characterized by symptoms such as tiredness, loss of motivation, concentration problems, headaches, sleep disorders and irritability. Although it can feel like depression to those affected at first, it must be clearly distinguished from it.

Unlike mental illness, post-holiday low mood is a temporary mood disorder that usually disappears quickly.

Five tips to combat post-holiday syndrome

If you don't feel like returning to the office in a bad mood after your vacation, you can also prevent post-holiday syndrome. For example, with our five tips against the post-holiday blues.

Tip 1: Complete all to-do's before the vacation

Procrastination is a trait that many of us share. After all, tomorrow is another day. Nevertheless, we should really work through all the items on our to-do list just before going on vacation. This allows us to enjoy the time off without having a work tab open somewhere in the back of our minds that gets bigger the closer we get to the first working day. Once we have dealt with all the old issues, we can start afresh on the first day after the vacation instead of having to solve old problems first.

Tip 2: Take things slowly

From zero to one hundred is never a good idea. Especially not if it means that we go straight from relaxation to stress again. On the first day in particular, we should take it easy instead. This means setting very generous deadlines and planning enough breaks.

And perhaps we can even activate the out-of-office note in our e-mail program for an extra day. And: don't stress yourself out before you start work. Dutch researcher Jeroen Narwijn has found out that your mood could otherwise plummet two days before your vacation ends.

Tip 3: Plan your vacation strategically

Smart scheduling of your vacation can take a lot of pressure off. For example, it makes sense not to schedule the return flight on the last day, but to allow ourselves a few days to arrive. This means that if we start work again on Monday, we should be back home by Saturday at the latest, or even better by Friday.

Another thing that helps to avoid the full force of work stress when you're still sitting by the sea in your sun hat: simply set the first day of work for Wednesday or Thursday. This allows us to avoid having to work a full working week straight away.

A sorrow shared is a sorrow halved - we all know this saying. But when we share moments of joy with others, we double our happiness. This is because we remember the beautiful moments and at the same time share them with the other person.

So it's worth taking vacation photos or souvenirs to work and telling our colleagues about the great time we had. This will help the after-holiday blues pass quickly. And maybe we'll get some inspiration for our next trip from the exchange.

Tip 5: Be understanding towards yourself

The fact is, we probably won't be back to our pre-holiday performance levels straight away. And that's completely normal. On vacation, we get used to a different daily routine, establish a different sleep rhythm and spend most of our time doing exactly what we feel like doing.

In everyday working life, our lives then follow fixed structures again. We should therefore give ourselves the time and space to calmly readjust to the working day. And don't forget that the next time-out will come.

Incidentally, from a psychological point of view, it is far more worthwhile to take shorter vacations more often than to take a longer trip once or twice a year. This is because the recovery effects fizzle out after two weeks at the latest, regardless of the duration of the time away, so that we are then back to our original stress level.

Source: RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland,