Post-Holiday Blues Are the Real Deal. Here’s How to Recover

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Posted December 26, 2014

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By Katherine Schreiber

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You’ve opened all the presents, recovered from food comas, and uploaded all your holiday photos to Facebook. But now that the Christmas trees have been hauled to the curb and the Menorah candles have been blown out, are you’re feeling down in the dumps? Well, sadly seasonal blues often reach their peak once all the festive fun’s over.

“As joyous as they can be, the stress and expectations associated with the holidays can overwhelm us and switch our brains into overdrive,” explains clinical psychologist Brett Kennedy. (Think: days and weeks of socializing, cooking, gift shopping, traveling, and tying up loose ends at work—all of which amplify stress and leaves little room for self care like exercise or meditation.) “Then, once everything’s over, there’s a reckoning—we crash.” Fatigue settles in, our motivation to get back to the gym or tackle virtual piles of unanswered email is sapped, and our bodies may be reeling from overindulging in food and drink. Oh yeah, and we’re expected to be back at our desks by 9:00 a.m. sharp on Monday. (Gulp!)

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“People expect to feel refreshed when they come back from a holiday,” says Amanda Itzkoff, a psychiatrist at Manhattan’s Mount Sinai Hospital. But here’s the reality of travel in a world where e-mails and texts ping away at us no matter how far we get from our bosses: Holiday vacations aren’t always restful. “Many people still work remotely during breaks. If not, they’re stressing about what awaits them at the office once they return. This contributes to feeling let down after the holidays because they haven’t allowed themselves time to recharge.”

Even if you’re not deluged with work e-mails while you’re away, technology has other ways of dragging you down. “We also risk inundating ourselves with information that over-stimulates our neurons and stirs feelings of envy, anxiety, and possibly depression,” Kennedy reminds us. Consider how you feel comparing your imperfect family vacation to the beaming, Rockwellian photos your friends post to Instagram.

We need a break from constantly checking our devices in order to decompress and bring down our cortisol levels, says Kennedy. He recommends setting up periods of tech-free times—say, at the dinner table, where a “no-phone zone” enables you to reconnect with family, listen to what people are actually saying, and practice the increasingly difficult art of being present. (If you’re already back home, try scheduling some hour-length breaks in your day to disconnect, take a walk outside, call a friend, or meditate.)

Source:: Greatist

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