Philosopher and political economist John Stuart Mill once wrote about why he didn’t take holidays“No holidays,” he explained, “lest I break the habit of work and acquire a taste for laziness.”
It’s definitely true that when people take a vacation after which return to work, they have an inclination to experience “instant stress.” All the R&R they got from a laid-back lifestyle of lounging by the pool can disappear inside hours of returning to the office.
Whether we work primarily in an office or at home, our work environment will be hectic, busy, fast-paced, unrelenting, and exhausting for many individuals—especially after some day without work. Two leading American cardiologists within the Nineteen Seventies, Meyer Friedman and Ray Rosenman, defined the implications of most work environments as “the disease of rushing”.
The latest within the UK Report of the Executive Committee on Health and Safety The Sickness Absence Study found that ‘stress, depression or anxiety’ accounted for 51% of all work-related ailing health and 55% of all working days lost due to work-related ailing health.
In short, most jobs are stressful and require moments of respite, deep rest and regeneration.
So how can we learn to manage the stress of returning to our desks in order that we will retain among the advantages of breaks and avoid the trap of post-holiday stress? As a professor of organizational psychology and health, I offer seven suggestions.
1. Reconnect along with your coworkers
On your first morning at work, use the primary hour(s) to reconnect with coworkers by sharing your vacation and other experiences. Work can provide positive and meaningful relationships, and socializing is crucial to maintaining our health and well-being.
2. Control your workload
Avoid responding to emails immediately. A big inbox will trigger a right away stress response, and the urge to read your entire emails in your first day is not going to only overwhelm and exhaust you, but it could actually also lead to problematic responses that may create problems in the connection afterward.
For example, you could be more terse than usual, and the recipient may get offended. Look through all of your emails casually, mark and reply only to the urgent ones, and leave the remaining for one more day.
3. Take short breaks
Make sure you’re taking a coffee or tea break and lunch on daily basis during your first week back. If you’re employed in an office, take these breaks with different coworkers, and through lunch time, try to leave the office to eat lunch in a park or other outdoor area.
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4. Get home on time and avoid long working hours
When you get home, get lively. Don’t lie down in front of the TV, but go to the gym or for a run, or treat yourself to a meal out with family or friends. Let the vacation spirit carry over into your house environment.
5. Don’t organize many meetings
The pace of most jobs is fast-paced for many individuals. Cardiologists Friedman and Rosenman suggested of their 1974 book, Type A Behavior and Your Heartthat folks turn into “time-obsessed” by the office environment. Don’t hold multiple meetings to show people you’re back and running. Basically, don’t try to get every thing in your inbox done in 48 hours!
6. Be tolerant towards your colleagues
Colleagues who continually complain and suggest that there isn’t any solution to the issue may cause stress, especially when you might have just returned from a beautiful and stress-free vacation. Try to be patient, tolerant and listen to their tirade without taking it seriously.
7. Set realistic work goals
Finally, avoid setting unrealistic deadlines at work and scheduling unnecessary meetings. Politely say “no” to stuff you won’t give you the chance to accomplish in your first week back.
Studs Terkel, a social reformer, wrote in his acclaimed book Working“Work is the search for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as money, for surprise as well as for indolence – in short, for a kind of living as well as for dying from Monday to Friday.”
The holidays give us a probability to take a break from the stresses of the fashionable workplace, so let a few of that stress rub off in your workplace while you return to the office.