Back to work, back to school, back to routine. A theme that eclipses September and is accompanied by a multitude of information about the symptoms and keys to overcome the not so welcome post-holiday syndrome. But, does it really affect us or do we make it affect us?

With the proliferation of the media, the massive and rapid way in which information is accessed and the socialization scenarios that increase with our peers in the return to work, certain "mimicry" effects can be generated. When we socialize and recount situations, we identify with the stories that are being transmitted to us. However, this socialization can have negative aspects. Let's take a look at status: How many times have we heard "how awful to go back to work, so good I was on vacation", or heard a colleague say that "he is depressed", feels "tired" and "doesn't feel like going back to work". Without realizing it, our receiver can empathize and come to have that same feeling that he or she might not have been experiencing before.

It is important to differentiate what could be the "post-holiday syndrome or depression" from the sadness that occurs at the end of the vacations. This sadness, gentlemen, is normal, it is what we have to live with. Returning to work or resuming a status is something we do year after year. Let us reflect: If you are experiencing sadness, it is because the vacation period makes sense. And vacations make sense if you work. If vacations are postponed, their meaning changes, they become everyday, thus losing their pleasurable meaning.

We are no longer debating between reaffirming the existence or not of vacation syndrome; we are talking about how we can address the status adaptation we face. And this status does not imply that it is dysfunctional per se. We would speak of dysfunction in the case in which this sadness is postponed in time. We would also do so if, additionally, the intensity with which we experience it increases. Sadness, on the contrary, disappears with the daily routine of the day.

As group social we need to think about the responsibility we have when socializing all this negative information, besides being aware that we may be mimicking what the media sells us, and that we do not feel.

The big question now is, well, how do we do it? Let's re-signify the status, let's analyze what resources we have had in the past to successfully overcome the same situations. Resources that have been optimal at the level staff that have allowed me to adapt to these new situations to repeat them over time. I not only provide the information to the other about how much the return costs me, but I add: "You know what has worked for me? Thinking about this status this way, doing it this way." Give myself self-instructions. If receipt negative information from my environment about how hard it is to go back to work, let's ask ourselves: How hard is it for me? Let's redefine the words.

Similarly, we can resort to certain guidelines to help us adapt to the routine we had before the summer, such as starting with the habits (time to get up and go to bed, breakfast preparation, etc.) a week before joining the work; arrive with enough time to mitigate jet lag in the case of returning from abroad, do not start with all your strength, the rhythm of the body and emotions is different. Returning to work, going back to the gym, and returning to English classes is a cocktail of elements that the body will probably not be able to assimilate at the same time. Let's not add more load to the one we already have from the first moment. And, above all, let's keep in mind that summer is not over until September 21. Let's keep planning to go to the pool or the beach on weekends. In this way we will be acquiring the dynamics of work and at the same time, we will stop longing for the "good life" of the vacations.

We could say that in this "pulling out our artillery of resources" we focus on internal things, which we control ourselves. But other external resources, which go hand in hand with employers, are also favorable. Generating socialization spaces so that employees can talk about their vacation period, making schedules flexible the first week allowing the employee to be linked to the typical patterns of work will reduce the collective stress status , because the responsibilities to be faced before returning to work (daycare, schools, etc.) are reduced. In conclusion: We adapt, that is what we do, what we have been doing all our lives. You have resources that you have always implemented for these times and that have worked for you. Repeat them, implement them. And those that have not worked, train them. If afterwards, the feeling of poor wellbeing is postponed in time as well as its intensity, go to a professional.