Beating the Post Vacation Blues
by Janet Groene

It’s the end of a season, weekend or vacation. At first you’re elated, relieved to be at home again. Then it hits you. It may be months before you see the grandkids again, or a year before you’ve saved enough for another cruise.

Psychologists and other mental health professionals are dealing more and more often these days with a a real syndrome known as post-vacation blues.

If you find yourself in a funk on returning home, there are good reasons. Bills have to be paid. Laundry has piled up. The grass needs mowing and the squawk list for the car or RV is a mile long. Here, from experts in their fields, are ways seniors can bounce themselves back from those home-again blues.

• One source of post-getaway angst, says stress and wellness expert Beverly Beuermann-King of worksmartlivesmart.com, is vacation envy. “Young workers are more likely than their older counterparts to feel this envy,” she reveals. If your young friends, family and co-workers aren’t as interested in hearing about your trip as you hoped they would be, this could be the reason.

No matter that you worked long and hard, and deserve your retirement or vacation perks. Young workers may be working under a different contract and see your perks as unfair. In any case, the younger they are the more years ahead before they will be in your shoes, vacation-wise. Don’t over-do the vacation talk.

• Manhattan-based psychotherapist and advice columnist Jonathan Alpert routinely hears from clients who stress out right after their vacations. “I advise everyone to build in a buffer day to catch up following a vacation. Use that day to run errands, catch up phone calls and stock the fridge, then go out to dinner as a reward,” he counsels.

• “Talk about it,” advises registered marriage and family therapist Marilyn Barnicke Belleghem M.Ed. “Create verbal and visual presentations. Build stories about what actually happened to you personally.” Verbalize what you saw, said, heard and felt when you went to the top of the Eiffel Tower. What changes did you see in France since your last visits? That’s much more interesting, says Bellegham than just saying, “I went up. Here’s a picture.”

• Lauree Ostrofsky, CPC, is a certified life coach found at www.simplyleap.com.
“I speak to clients about keeping the vacation feeling alive in their minds,” she explains. “First, I have them determine their strongest, happiest memory from the vacation. We determine what was important about that moment such as peace, togetherness with a loved one. Then we attach it to a symbol brought back from the trip.”

It might, for example, be a token from a bus trip you took to visit ancient ruins. “I might even suggest that clients name that token Adventure Bus,” reveals Ostrofsky. Now display that symbol where you’ll see it often and be transported back to your Adventure Bus moment. “The key is learning what came from the vacation and keeping it alive,” she recommends.

• Monica Ricci, CPO, is an organizing expert, a speaker and author who blogs at www.monicaricci.typepad.com. She agrees with many other experts that it’s smart to come home to a clean house and to come home a day or two before you have to rush headlong into your normal routine, but she also recommends doing laundry on vacation!

This isn’t for everyone, but many resorts, marinas, campgrounds and cruise ships have coin laundries. If arriving home with suitcases full of clean clothes would make life easier for you, go for it.

• Book next year’s vacation before you leave, suggest hosts at the Hotel Villa Cimbrone (www.villacimbrone.com) in Ravello, Italy. In 1938, Swedish actress Greta Garbo drew worldwide press attention after renting Villa Cimbrone for a month’s stay with her lover, Leopold Stokowsky. The villa is booked repeatedly by couples who reserve next year’s stay before leaving.

For many people it’s important to look forward to the same island, the same resort and even the same room. Whether it’s simply because you know and trust the management, like the room’s familiar location or layout, or have strong sentimental attachment to a place, repeat bookings like these result in a year-round relationship with a place you have made your own.

Lastly, says Dr. Terry Egan, psychiatrist at Moonview Sanctuary in California, “There is really no cure for post-vacation blues other than to begin planning your next one and promising yourself that you are not going to wait as long next time. Vacations truly are essential for good health.”

return to top