Tag: Post-Festival Blues

Handling the Post-Festival Blues

With a lull in the long stretch of festivities and having to return to the ‘normal’ work routine, are you also experiencing post-festival blues?

As the long Festive spell from August to October, sees a Break, before we enter into Christmas and New Year Festivities, we have a little Lull.

Lull in the festive energies, lull in the mini- and big- office parties. The Navratri and Diwali decorations are slowly being put aside now, and the office suddenly seems too…normal.

Getting back in the groove after a stretch of festivities can be difficult. There is a lingering feeling of wanting a longer break. If you had no break, you at least wish that the office space would suddenly not go back to being so quiet again. We have cases of the ‘post-festival blues’!

Let us have a look at some ways in which we can use our ‘post-festival blues’ to our advantage:

Enjoy the Routine: Breaks often mean our daily routine goes out of the window- slow mornings, long lunches, no deadlines and evenings spent with no plans for the next day. Going back to routine work after a long stretch of festivities can be tiresome. It may need a lot of motivation….at first.

The beauty of routine is that once you actually get back to it, you discover a lost ‘rhythm’. Sometimes, we actually need things to be structured to have a productive day. That daily commute where you gather your thoughts for the day ahead. Or the positive kind of pressure you put on yourself to meet that deadline. Or the ‘eustress’ or the good kind of stress that propels you to innovate and work hard. All this and all other kind of ‘hard work’ helps us to rediscover the rhythm we may have lost during the festive stretches.

Enjoy the Quiet: The sound of the gentle murmurs, the shuffling of papers, the beeps of machines and the tapping of keyboards- the ‘quiet’ office is often considered one of the best environments to work in. After the din of celebrations, a calm, quiet environment in the office means better focus and better productivity. Now is the best time to use this to the best of our advantage after a refreshing break.

But wait, the festivities are not over yet…

If you are someone who just cannot get over the post-festival blues, well, Christmas is not far away! There are more celebrations, breaks in the routine to look forward to. We can also remember that the ‘diya’ within can always remain lit up- it doesn’t have to end with Diwali. So, light up the office space with your bright presence! We can still wish everyone well even without any festival around. We can bask in the abundance of our life through gratitude. We can keep our work area decorated with small reminders of our loved ones. The gifts of kindness and empathy never go out of season. And there is no wrong time to celebrate hard work.

So, are you ready to turn the festival blues into the joyous lights of the productive routine?

Post-Festival Blues: Things to Remember

Post-Festival Blues_Things to Remember

 

Diwali festivities are over.

It’s a New Year for some, a new week, a new day.

The thing with festivals in India, especially the ones like Diwali is that the preparations begin from weeks before. Festivities are in the air even before the actual festival. Even in the workplace, Diwali begins to act like a marker on the timeline.

“We will do this project post-Diwali.”

“I want to place this candidate before Diwali.”

Offices are decked up. So are the streets, shops and homes. Even if you didn’t take a holiday for the festival, there might be a certain sense of “return to normalcy.” Everything around you is now back to how it was before. Offices, streets, shops and homes were decked up.

Festivals are preceded and succeeded by more festivals. In-between, we have this period.

It’s not easy for the eyes and ears to miss the festive spirit. And it’s not easy too, for the eyes and ears to get used to the absence of that same festive spirit afterwards.

It is very easy to get post-festival blues or post-festival withdrawal syndrome at this point.

What can we do about it?

Here are some tricks to keep your mood and motivation levels up.

 

Routine:

Getting back to your ‘mundane’ routine might actually be a blessing in disguise! Let us think talk about it.

Meeting and greeting of family and friends, pouring in of unexpected guests, travelling- solo or with our loved ones- could be psychologically invigorating but physically tiring. Sleep cycles often suffer during these times. The pleasantness of such interactions doesn’t bring the tiredness to notice.

The need to get back to work, coupled with this tiredness will ensure you sleep on time, and thus regain the freshness you might have lost over the past few days.

 

Find the Rhythm:

Now is a great time to establish a work-rhythm. With the back to back festivities of Navratri/Pujo and Diwali coming to a halt, it would have been difficult to maintain a certain sense of continuity: one step, and there would have been a holiday!

Processes would have been deferred, and in some cases left hanging.

Documents would have been left unsigned.

Now is the time to clear up all that, and push the processes towards the next step. Holidays often bring with them a certain stagnancy.

A sense of rhythm and dynamism is a big plus-point when there aren’t many major breaks on the horizon for the next couple of months.

The rhythm lets you work well, thus brings you the due rewards. This is a perception which can help us go a long way, with our productivity and motivation levels.

The end of a festive break also means you wouldn’t have to balance work and festivities, thus bringing the focus levels up.

 

The Double Whammy:

Sure, winter is approaching and you have noticed how days are so short now. It’s often dark outside by the time you leave the office.

But this is the perfect season to get outdoors! It’s not freezing, nor there is the frying heat. Planning outings over the weekend, evening walks, a well-charted workout etc. would not only give you something to look forward to, but also make you active. A healthy body means a healthy mind and vice versa. And thus better levels of motivation, hence better productivity.

 

It is important to maintain a positive attitude. We feel the festivals are a break from our routine  because they are not our routine: it is important to understand this binary, because it helps one appreciate everything, right from why we work to why we celebrate.

We laughed along with the festivities and the break. Now is a great time to smile at the mundane and the routine.