Back to Work: how to fight back against stress for holidays return

Say goodbye to the alarm clock set late, to the lazy afternoons spent under the beach umbrella, to the endless happy hours at the sunset and to those crazy nights with friends.

Here we are, the swimsuit is back in the wardrobe, and we sit in our office in front of our computer: we watch it, it watches us, and we wonder about how can it be possible that we have not started working yet, and we are already more stressed than we were before leaving. 

Poltroncina AAC 22 di Hay - credits: Alvhem

English people, not benefiting of a weather capable to allow them a return without regrets, coined a specific expression to refer to the unease of returns: the post vacation blues.

It is about that unmanageable set of bad feelings that originates as soon as we enter our home and that gets us nervous and complaining. Anyway, scholars, who continuously examine different types of disorders, do not agree on defining it a real illness: it is rather like an ailment people must react to. Definitely too simple.

By having not even science support, here there is some help to face the feared return as positively as possible.

The way back home

Staying in a resort till the last day of your holidays seemed a wonderful idea, at least until the moment when you sat in your desk, exhausted because of the return. Now you sit in front of your desktop and look at your colleagues: are they more suntanned than me?

The solution? Go back home some days before and enjoy it!

Even if travelling and discovering are among the most exciting things in the world, gradually the desire to go back home grows stronger and stronger. After a good night’s sleep in your own bed, definitely more comfortable than Mrs Lucia’s one on Airbnb, you will not regret the sea view. Maybe.

Anyway, do you know what is the first thing to do as soon as you reach home? Unpacking the baggage, loading the laundry machine and re-organize your spaces. Otherwise, you could lie down on the sofa and become depressed. You can read that book you have not finished yet, maybe while you listen to good music and drink good wine - because you are still on holidays after all, aren’t you?

credits: Paula Passini

Holiday blues

You experienced how pleasant walks at the sunset can be, got into a detective novel you had not read since you were 14, unloaded a latent festive side of your character and discovered that the risotto with lobsters can be prepared at home, too. All this on the sea, at sunset, while wearing comfortable flip flops.

Of course, nothing will be the same now that you are back to your city, but summer has not finished, yet! Try that new restaurant next to your house with a hidden courtyard, go running in the park, try the open-air cinema, drink happily a spritz and, why not, (let someone) buy a present for you.

An other solution? Plan a week end out-of-town. Of course, it will not be the same as having a long period of total relax, far from everything and everybody, but it will be equally a pleasure to get back for a couple of days those swimsuit and beach towel you closed in the wardrobe some days before while a tear fell down your face.

Rodolfo, il pouf per esterni di LOVEThESIGN, alle Fonderie Milanesi

Back to work (out) after holiday

Be it January 1, monday morning or the holidays return, they all represent for the most a new beginning. After having rested the brain, things to do are clearer than ever.

You will begin diet and physical activity. Probably you will be forced to do that at six in the morning, in order to have time to meditate five minutes before going to work. You will register to a sewing class, because you have always dreamt to be able to sew your clothes by yourself. Then you will help hamsters in trouble - it is important, voluntary work must be done because it is useful both for you and for the others. So, you will look for a new job and, probably, you will move to the Canaries: you have always dreamt to live abroad and to open a chiringuito on the beach.

It is essential to set some goals to start again, but they must be within reach. You may wish the peace in the world, of course, but a simpler post-it with a list of short term goals may be good as well: you can register to the gym, do shopping and invite Christine and John for the dinner, because they will tell you about their holidays in Sicily. It could be a good destination for next summer, why not? Surely you are not still thinking about holidays, are you?