3 tips for dealing with depression or “post holiday stress”
“He who has never seen sorrow,
will never recognise joy.”
Khalil Gibran
He returns from holidays, from that stop-over where he supposedly rested his body and mind from the usual routine. He took the opportunity to experience everything that he thinks is not possible in his usual daily routine, by doing “everything” that he felt like (or that he could). He stopped to be with his family, enjoyed the sun, the sea, the countryside, the beach, he was in the place where he always had a good time, or he took the opportunity to meet places and people that distracted him; he felt good and appreciated enjoying everything that he usually can’t do in his daily life. All this comes to an end and, like everything that is lost and felt as important, it leaves a more or less diffuse feeling of sadness that is like the other side of the coin: behind a great joy, serenity or well-being, there is the experience of having felt sadness, tiredness, weariness.
What can be done to make up for this sadness at the end of those happy days, of those wonderful holidays when the “obligations were reduced” or non-existent because they were the result of choices, of decisions and he did not feel imprisoned in obligations that take away his freedom of choice, the alternative?
Get busy and fulfil your purposes and interests in your life
Get busy getting back to your daily activities by setting small goals. For example, today you will make a plan to do something every day of the week that you enjoy and is important according to your interests and values. Identify and schedule hobbies and activities that allow you to be with people who are important to you. If your daily routine no longer makes sense to you, look for people with whom you can discuss and find alternatives and ways to transform your life – between holidays – for the better.“I never imagined that love for others and aggression lived in the same house.
I never thought that peace and war dwelled in the same human being.”
Augusto Cury in o Vendedor de Sonhos
Dealing with depression and “post-holiday stress” by occupying yourself in a way that fulfils your life’s purposes and interests, does not answer your question. After all, what you feel is not sadness, but rather an enormous irritation with everything and everyone. He feels frustrated, powerless to change what is part of his life. Any alternative, which seems unfeasible and uncomfortable, causes upset and unease: the noise, people’s voices, reducing the accumulated weight, the same conversations, the same old things.
He cannot conform: his frustration makes him feel that it is possible to achieve what he wants. But everything irritates him, and he feels that everyone is intractable and perhaps, without realising it, his irritation and aggressiveness drives others away from him: they either respond in kind and, when his irritation says “kill”, the others respond “I’ll skin you”. So begins an endless dance of conflict, sleepless nights and unnerving.
Indeed, stress signals the feeling of being unable to cope with the demands, challenges and requests of one’s family, social and professional life. Back in your usual life, your reality, you are confronted with something that escapes you. You may have gone into debt to go on holiday, or have a certain lifestyle that pressures you and wears you down in a permanent tension of vigilance over spending, or irritation at not having what you would like or consider you deserve. You may feel that you do not have the skills to carry out your work with less effort and without a heavy workload. You experience some health limitations which make it difficult for you to cope with some efforts. Your finances are not compatible with the lifestyle you have, or you are confronted with an unstable and competitive work reality with few alternatives which would allow you to take another professional path.
What can be done to break out of this cycle?
Learn to rest, to stop in your daily life
For great evils, great remedies. Learn to rest, to stop on a daily basis. If you don’t sleep well, you lose your reason more easily, you can no longer analyse situations objectively, you lose your tolerance to face the countless setbacks and specificities of others. If you don’t learn to relax – and the best sign you have is the calm you usually feel – it will be difficult for you to find alternatives to find solutions for your lack of skills – for example, to study, to ask for an opinion, to ask for help, to reduce the amount of work – or to express clearly, directly and with respect for others and according to the rights you have, your points of view, to restore situations of abuse of authority, power, etc. Therefore, Take care of your rest hygiene by sleeping, reducing excessive activity. Learn to relax and organise yourself. Have you ever thought that if you don’t breathe while you speak, everything you want to say becomes impossible to understand? It is the pauses that allow you to dialogue with others and allow others to understand what you say. And in this case, it is the rest and the small breaks you take in your life that allow you to live more and better and to deal without “stress” with the wonderful reality of your life, where peace and war dwell, to enjoy peace or make war to fight for what you want.“All this makes sense, but the truth is that it does not provide a real answer either to sadness or to stress. What to do?
Shoes that look good on one person are small on another;
there is no one recipe for life that fits all.”
Carl Jung