Depressed After Your Vacation

Six Tips for Decreasing Post-Trip Depression

Do you feel like you need a vacation after your vacation? Many people, if not most, often get depressed after coming home from a trip. This can happen for numerous reasons:

- Fatigue from jetlag

- Going back to work

- Facing a pile of mail and bills

- Coming back to a dirty house

- Not having another vacation for a year 

- Unpacking and doing laundry

For most of us, coming back from a vacation is a letdown-even more so if the vacation was too expensive or disappointing in some way. But there are some things you can do to lessen the impact of the post-vacation blues. Read on:

1. Return with a day or two before you have to start work. The worst you can do is to come home on a Sunday and then face a whole week of work. Jetlag will get you to some degree no matter what you do. So plan on being tired for a couple of days. If you can, come back in the middle of the week, so when you do start work again, it won't be long until the weekend.

2. Before you leave, arrange for the post office to hold your mail until you pick it up. That way, you won't walk in the door and get upset about bills, legal notices or threats from the IRS. Try to pay your bills before you go, so there will be electricity and a working landline phone when you get back. Another thought: listen to your voicemail messages before you return so there are no surprises.

3. Clean your house before you leave. You don't have to scrub and clean, but clear away clutter. It may seem great to just leave everything and dash off to the airport when you first leave, but it won't feel so good coming back to a mess when the party (vacation) is over.

4. Do your laundry before you leave to come home. That means one less thing to do when you get in the door. If you really want to be fanatic about all this, pack your clothes on hangers, so you can make it really easy on yourself when you go to put things away in your closet.

5. Before you leave on vacation, plan something good for when you come back. This will give you something to look forward to. This can be going to a good movie you've wanted to see, arranging a date with some friends or buying a house (you have to be really down-and rich-to do this).