The end of summer arrives and what is called post-vacation syndrome appears. Eating healthy, exercising or taking it positively are some of the recommendations that are usually given to overcome it, but being natural is the best way to deal with it.
"Everything tends to be pathologised," warns Dolors Liria, an expert in professional health, founder of Menta and vice-dean of the Official College of Psychology of Catalonia. Liria explains that, from her area of knowledge, post-vacation syndrome is not a clinical picture or a typical diagnosis. It is simply a common phenomenon in people when they return from vacation.
Returning to the routine implies a readaptation effort that lasts a few days or a week. Post-vacation syndrome is "an adaptive reaction," says Liria. Afterwards, each person takes it in a different way, there are those who practically do not notice it and others who find it more difficult. "It depends a lot on personal circumstances," says the vice-dean of the Official College of Psychology of Catalonia.
Human beings already have natural resources to cope with this readaptation. In addition, this step into the routine can be favored by returning home a couple of days before to start with it. What you should not do, emphasizes Liria, is return from a long trip the day before starting work. The idea is not to leave the most intense part of the vacation just before going back to work.
“You can leave two or three days to be able to make contact to put things in order and thus have life a little more organized before starting. This is going to help us so that the impact is not so great, ”she explains. Then there are different types of people. There are those who feel more mentally rested after spending the holidays doing activities and then there are those who literally need to do nothing.
Keeping your mind in the present and setting short-term goals are also methods that can help make it easier to return to work. It is also advisable not to be too aware of the past or the future, thinking about the plans for the coming summer, for example. In this way, the working season gradually enters. Liria insists on the naturalness of not feeling well after finishing the holidays.
Now, if the negative feelings are prolonged over time and affect activities of daily life, you do have to go to a professional psychologist. The vice dean points out that asking for help can provide a space to see what the problem is that goes beyond a simple return to work.
There are people who have psychological suffering for other reasons or others who are experiencing a very difficult situation at work. In these cases, it would no longer be the post-vacation syndrome. Liria stresses that the discomfort would have to do with other causes and the end of the holidays would be an aggravating factor.
Liria assures that it is “counterproductive” to force herself to face the routine with positivism. “You don't decide how you take them. They are taken as they are taken”. What can be done, she says, is figure out the best way to manage those feelings. But she dismisses it as "unrealistic" to tell people to take a return to work positively. Therefore, her advice is that people give themselves permission to be sick for a few days. She emphasizes that, if she is in shape, the post-vacation syndrome will pass sooner. If one forces oneself to be well, those feelings “get stuck”.
