5 Insights on how to overcome your Summer Holiday Blues
Have you recently come back from a vacation or holiday break and are now struggling to get yourself back into your regular routine?
Its okay to feel like this! Many of us do!
When Summer is upon us in the Southern Hemisphere and many of us are enjoying the sun, surf and beautiful summer evenings it is demotivating and requires a shift in mind set to get back into what feels like the “grind of life”
Are you….
- Feeling lazy and don’t want to go to work
- Lacking energy that you had whilst on holiday?
- Feeling lethargic and you don’t know why?
- Wanting to spend time with your kids after work, but can’t be bothered?
- Prioritising housework, chores, sorting out your bills is on the agenda, but you just keep pushing it out of the way?
- Reminiscing of being back on holiday
- Wanting to make drastic changes in your life because you want more time?
- Want more freedom in your life but do not know where to start?
Then you are not alone!
Many of us experience the post holiday blues when we feel like we need to get back to the reality of life, and the moments whilst we had on holidays enjoying relaxing days, summer BBQs, the beach and sun start to fade like a distant memory.
To overcome this, I want to share with you my Top 5 Coping Strategies that keep me in a great head space whilst I continue to enjoy the summer evenings ahead.
Reflect and Be Mesmerised by Your Holiday Moments
Visual imagery helps us get into a good feel mode. Use the happy memories that you shared with your loved ones as visual representations when you need to keep yourself calm. I do this by going through my phone pictures and recalling moments. I love images of the beach, sunrises, sunsets, family snaps and places where we experienced amazing nutritional food and use these to remember and be grateful for the moments that we had. This exercise only needs to take a few minutes when you are feeling lethargic or overwhelmed. It makes me feel grateful for the places that I have experienced, food that I have tried and grateful that I can have the time in my life to be able to take breaks.
Balance and Reset
Holidays and especially these beautiful Summer Sydney days tend to make us eat, drink, get out of routine and stay up later than we normally would. Why wouldn’t we? Whilst its hard not to overindulge in good food, wine and sleep less, this can actually be counter intuitive and lead to mood swings when we are back into our daily routines. Therefore finding the right balance is important.
So my advice is to plan your evenings and weekends to ensure that you are still enjoying what the summer months have to offer whilst balancing what your body needs – nutritional food, sleep and plenty of water. If you are going to indulge a little focus on having Summer BBQs where you can enjoy lean meat, seafood and salads. Swap out the alcohol and wine for fresh cool juices to nourish your body.
Extend your holiday moments
Instead of pining and missing a holiday event or time that has ended, choose to relish in the experiences and incorporate some of these in your everyday life.
By integrating the best parts of your holiday memories into your everyday experiences you can embed these memories to keep your mood elevated. My top tips here would be taking your partner and kids and enjoying a summer bike ride, or make some dinner and go to a local park or beach and spend some time enjoying the evening whilst having your dinner. If you have a backyard pool, enjoy an evening swim, its a great muscle to destress your muscles and mind and prepare you for a relaxed evening and quality sleep.
Talk and Walk
Summer nights are beautiful at the moment. Grab your family and go for a summer evening walk. It is a great way to reconnect with your family members, discuss plans for the year, and enjoy nature and your surrounds.
To reduce overwhelm, share the workload each evening with your family members, get organised for the next day of work to reduce the mental load.
The intent of the summer walk is to enjoy and relax, not to feel overwhelmed that other things are not getting done. It is a great way to boost energy and serotonin levels so you can feel good and its important to continue to feel connected with our partners and children like we do when we are on vacation
Plan Your Next Getaway
When I met my husband we decided that we wanted to experience place, enjoy life and see what the world had to offer as best we could within our busy and hectic work schedules, and within our budget.
By coincidence on every vacation break, we would end up discussing the places we wanted to see, the experiences we wanted to enjoy and the local cuisines that we wanted to try.
This conscious act of discussing our travel plans became out mantra… and as such when we are on vacation, we discuss our bucket lists and plan the next vacation, and in most instances book or at least plan for our next getaway.
This helps us beat the post holiday blues by knowing that we have a few months of hard work ahead, that we need to save up for the next holiday.
So my tip here is to take some time whilst you are relaxed on your holiday break to discuss your holiday destinations and aspirations and put a plan in place.
It is a great way to connect with your partner, enjoy researching together and also have something to look forward to.
Would love to hear your thoughts on how you stay motivated or get back on track after the holiday breaks.