Don’t want to go to work, no appetite… Suffering from “post-holiday syndrome” again? Here are some tips to help you recover!

We always say that we should be full of energy when we return to work after a long vacation, but in the first week of work, the more common situation is like this:

White-collar worker Xiao Zhang always feels sluggish. He feels drowsy in the morning, gets a headache after staring at the computer screen for too long in the afternoon, and has no appetite all day.

Editor Xiao Wang found that his attention was wandering. After reading two pages of an article, his thoughts drifted away. At the end of the day, he only read a few pages.

Programmer Xiao Li feels uncomfortable as soon as he sits at his workstation. He gets furious when he encounters a bug. Irritation and anger alternate constantly and become the main theme of his work.

Do you also find yourself feeling tired, drowsy, having a poor appetite, having difficulty concentrating on work, having unusual muscle aches or a fast heartbeat, and often feeling anxious, empty, or irritable in the first week of work? Be careful, these may be symptoms of "post-holiday syndrome"!

The balance of life is broken

"Post-holiday syndrome" is not a disease, but a nickname for a state. It refers to a series of problems caused by the disruption of physiological and psychological balance when people suddenly enter a tense work state from a relaxed state during the holiday. The disruption of physiological balance is relatively intuitive.

During the holidays, we attend various dinner parties and inevitably overeat; we don’t have to work from nine to five, so we often stay up late to watch TV series, play games, and sleep until noon. After work, we need some time to adjust our stomachs, during which we may have diarrhea and loss of appetite; we have to force ourselves to go to bed and get up early, so it is not surprising that we suffer from insomnia at night, cannot wake up in the morning, and feel listless during the day.

The disruption of psychological balance is even more worthy of our consideration. It can be said that "post-holiday syndrome" mainly refers to emotional problems: returning to work from vacation is not only a return from leisure to intense busyness, but also a return from full of joy to lack of joy, from "freedom" to "unfreedom". During the vacation, we can choose to do things that make us happy according to our own wishes, so our brains are filled with "happiness factors" - dopamine. When we return to work, we lack the stimulants that can make us secrete dopamine, and we will have a "withdrawal reaction" - similar to the uncomfortable feeling of people who quit smoking when they first quit smoking. The vacation has just ended, and we hope to have a few more days of vacation. The lack of pleasure makes us upset.

The consequences of “should”

The metaphor of "withdrawal reaction" seems a bit inappropriate: vacations are not harmful and addictive like tobacco and alcohol. But nowadays, in the eyes of many people, the opposition between work and vacation is becoming more and more irresistible - many people think that workdays should be hard and boring, and they need to revel in vacations as compensation; many people even think that they work hard for a week just to relax for two days on the weekend, and work hard for a year just to enjoy the long Spring Festival holiday.

If you take this view, then returning to work from vacation does require a "detox." In fact, this is the real source of "post-holiday syndrome."

More and more people have a "should" view of work. Xiao Zhang told me that every morning when he gets up, he thinks that he "should" get up, otherwise he will be late and his salary will be deducted. Working diligently is "should" because you have to make money, and everyone around you is working hard, so you can't stand out. Having to do some boring work is also "should", and not being able to endure hardship will make people around you look down on you.

Obviously, Xiao Zhang internalized the society's requirements for a working person, but the form of his internalization is called "introjection" by psychologists, that is, swallowing it all without digesting it - these requirements are imposed on him by others, and he "should" do so, but he does not do so out of his own intention.

This kind of "introjection" is problematic: Xiao Zhang lacks autonomy at work and is only obedient. He only does the work assigned to him according to the requirements of the position. During holidays, he will show "rebellion" against the work requirements - he will never get up early, will never study to "recharge", and will spend all his time to get "pleasure". This kind of "rebellion" is not his own choice, but is imposed on himself just to make holidays different from weekdays.

From the joy of "rebellion" during the holidays to the obedience of "internalization" after work, the feeling of "withdrawal" is inevitable. If work is just a "should" for us, then unfortunately, in the next year, we will continue to repeat the "withdrawal" cycle of looking forward to the holidays as soon as work starts.

The significance of reintegration work

The method of treating "post-holiday syndrome" is actually very simple. We just need to change the way we look at work. In his book "Intrinsic Motivation", the famous psychologist Edward Deci mentioned that in addition to "introjection", there is also an opposite way of internalization, called "integration", which means truly identifying with the requirements of the outside world and absorbing them as part of the self. "Integration" requires autonomy and choice. For those who have achieved "integration", it is their own choice to take on hard and often boring work. Therefore, they have real intrinsic motivation for work. They have a sense of self-worth because they are competent for the work. They can feel the value of their work to others and to society. Therefore, they can always get a sense of meaning from their work. Use a sense of meaning to fill the lack of pleasure after the holiday, and the "post-holiday syndrome" will naturally no longer exist.

For most of us, our jobs are of course our own choice, but the autonomous component in this choice may be strong or weak, and it may gradually weaken over time. Before the Spring Festival holiday, the fatigue of a year's hard work may make us forget the meaning and value of work, and we just want to take a good rest. This kind of rest should not only be relaxation, but also re-"integration". It is a good time to start work after the New Year. Why not re-examine your work and ask yourself: Why did you choose such a job on your own?

What value does your work bring to others and society?

What qualities and strengths do you have that enable you to do this job better than most people?

Do you feel more motivated at work?

Finally, the disruption of physiological balance will make us physically uncomfortable and mentally depressed, affecting our work state. You may have blamed yourself for your poor state. In order to better experience the sense of competence at work, it is also important to help yourself restore physiological balance as soon as possible. You can:

Go to bed early and get up early, and reduce the use of electronic products before going to bed;

Eat a light diet and avoid greasy food;

Set up more breaks at work and walk around more;

Arrange light exercise such as walking, jogging, yoga, etc.

May you rekindle your sense of meaning in your work, and may the new year be truly “full of energy”!

Source: "Popular Health" magazine, People's Health

Review | Experts from the National Health Science Expert Database

Wang Shaoli, chief physician at Beijing Huilongguan Hospital