Many people have had some time off recently. If you also had free time, you might have been away, or you went on trips, you finally took the time to read that one book that you had ready for so long or you just laze around.
Whatever you’ve been up to, there may have been times when you hoped the vacation would last longer. Maybe you didn’t feel quite rested when you started working again. Or maybe you wanted to get started but dreaded the mountain of work you would find, the exhausting Zoom meetings or the deadlines you have to meet again. This can lead to a lot of restlessness and tension.
“After the holidays I’m going to do it differently!”
Did you think this during the holidays? And now the time has come and it turns out to be difficult. The relaxed holiday feeling quickly fades away and tension settles in your body and head again.
It is not at all strange that there are stressful moments when the “normal” rhythm starts again. In daily life we simply have to deal with fixed (school) times, deadlines, expectations, homework and other obligations.
Is there nothing we can do to build some of that relaxed feeling into our daily lives? That is possible!
The relaxed feeling of vacation is largely due to the freedom we have to decide what to do: sleep long, go for a walk, visit a city, windsurf, eat out, read a book, cook elaborately, etc. The good news is that you can also apply elements of freedom in your daily life after the holiday. But you have to do that consciously.
You can do this:
- Keep your weekend completely free, don’t plan anything and just see what you feel like on the day itself.
- Build in a moment of rest every (working) day of, for example, half an hour or an hour and do what you need at that moment.
- Use your lunch break for a nice walk, rain or shine: you will see that you will improve.
- Take more time to get to your next appointment so you don’t have to rush. Being 10 minutes early gives a lot of rest, being 5 minutes late causes a lot of stress.
- Take a look at the holiday photos together again and pick up the stories. Would you like to get that relaxed holiday feeling back for a while? Before you know it, all the special moments will come back to your mind and you will be in other realms.
- Sing and/or dance along to your favorite music, eg while cooking or cleaning up after dinner.
- Take your time before each meal and don’t stuff your food while you work.
- Ensure good sleep hygiene: do not go to bed too early if you are very tired, but go to bed at the same time every night and get up at the same time. Do not use a mobile phone / laptop / TV, etc. for the last 2 hours before going to sleep, but listen to some quiet music or read a good book. Have a cup of tea and dim the lighting a bit. Repeat the same routine every night and you will see that it helps you sleep better. In any case, do not take alcohol or sleeping pills if you want to sleep better.
- And do you know that “nothing” every now and then is wonderful during the day?
- Or a day “home alone”? That can do wonders.
- Find a quiet physical activity that relaxes you, for example taking old flowers from the plants outside, making a jigsaw puzzle, doing crafts. Or play along with children when building Lego, making a train track or swing in the playground.
- And of course it is always wonderful to plan a massage to completely relax, as well as a sauna visit and yoga. These are all excellent forms of relaxation.
Important: Give each other the space to get used to all the new rhythms and rules after the holidays; one gets energy from the positive tension that this gives, the other these new impressions and emotions cost a lot of energy and is exhausted. Give each other the freedom to plop on the couch if necessary.
WILL YOU JOIN?
Choose at least 1 of these activities for each day next week and consciously plan them in your day. See how you experience that activity and continue with the things you liked and possibly choose some new activities for the next week. This way you will discover which activities give you energy again.
The problem of too much tension and fatigue is often not only the stress we have to deal with, but also the lack of recharging energy with energizers. So you have to find out what your energizers are and use them.