Post-Vacation Blues: Why the Return Is Hard and How to Soften It

On average, Dutch people who had just come back from a holiday were no happier than people who had not gone away at all, in a panel survey of about 1,500 people published in 2010.¹ Post-vacation blues, the flat and slightly heavy feeling that can follow a good trip, is an everyday name for a temporary dip in mood. It is not a clinically recognized condition, and it is usually short-lived.² Studies that followed workers back from their breaks point to one likely reason: the lift from a vacation usually fades within weeks once work resumes.³

The return is easier to soften than to avoid, and most of the softening is planned before you leave. The steps below run in time order, from the week before the trip to the first weeks back:

1. Hand over your work and agree what can wait
2. Book a buffer day between the trip and work
3. Write an auto-reply that promises no instant answers
4. Sort the inbox before you answer anything
5. Block time and keep the first day light on meetings
6. Keep one holiday habit going
7. Put your next break in the calendar
8. Give your evenings something relaxing

This page covers one corner of the broader topic of work-life balance: coming back from leave.

Is post-vacation blues real?

The feeling is real; the label is informal. Medical News Today, in an article reviewed by a licensed therapist, calls post-vacation depression a colloquial term for a temporary low mood after a vacation and says the blues are short-term.²

Each half of that answer guards against a mistake. A medical-sounding name can make a passing mood seem more worrying than it is, while brushing it off can hide the rarer case where the low mood does not lift.

A project manager comes home from ten days with her family and feels flat by Monday lunchtime. By Tuesday she is snapping at small things. Ordinary life, with its alarms, commute and decisions, has come back all at once. What she can watch is how long the flatness lasts and whether it spreads into sleep, appetite or the rest of her life.

Myth

Feeling low after a holiday means the trip failed, or that you handled the return badly.

Fact

A dip after a break is usually brief. Holiday studies find that the lift from a vacation tends to fade once the usual demands of work return.

Count the days the flatness lasts: a dip that eases within a week or two fits the holiday studies, and one that deepens is worth watching.

Why do I feel depressed after a vacation?

Coming back reverses what made the break feel good. A 2009 review by Jessica de Bloom’s team at Radboud University in the Netherlands names two ways a holiday helps people recover: release from the daily demands of the job, and time for non-work activities you value and pick for yourself.³ On the first morning back, both swing the other way at once.

The demands return in a lump, and they can be bigger than usual if work piled up while you were away, and the chosen activities shrink back into evenings and weekends, so the first days can feel flat even when nothing is wrong.

The study

Limited evidence

Do holidays last? A 2009 review of seven vacation studies

De Bloom’s team combined the seven studies that met their criteria, each measuring healthy working adults before and after a holiday, in the US, Israel, Austria, the UK or Germany. Health complaints and exhaustion improved after the break. Four studies measured people twice after the return, and in those the gains had partly or fully faded 2 to 4 weeks after work resumed. The samples were mostly small, most studies lacked a comparison group, and almost every measure was a self-rating.³

A newer and larger meta-analysismeta-analysis: A study that combines the results of earlier studies on the same question into one overall estimate. Pooling makes the estimate more precise, but it cannot repair the studies it pools: a meta-analysis of surveys is still survey evidence.Full entry in the glossary is more hopeful. Ryan Grant, Beth Buchanan and Kristen Shockley’s 2025 review of 32 studies reports a large effect of vacations on well-being that wears off more slowly than once thought; only the abstract could be read for this article.⁴ Both reviews agree on the direction: the lift is real, and it shrinks after the return.

The steps later on aim at those two routes: lighten the first demands, and keep a little of the chosen time alive after you are back.

How long do post-vacation blues last?

No study has measured post-vacation blues as such, but studies of well-being after holidays give a rough guide: most of the lift is gone within days to a few weeks of the return to the job.

The fastest fade comes from a Dutch study by de Bloom’s team that followed workers through a winter sports holiday. Health, mood, energy and tension all improved during the trip, and by the first week back at work they had generally returned to where they started.⁵ The larger panel survey from the opening, by Jeroen Nawijn and colleagues, found one exception to its no-difference average: people who had a very relaxed holiday were happier on their return, for at most about two weeks.¹

Expect the first week to feel the hardest, and expect it to ease. If weeks pass and the low mood grows heavier, go to the section on low mood that does not lift.

A demanding return goes with a faster fade

What waits at work seems to set the pace. Jana Kühnel and Sabine Sonnentag surveyed 131 teachers in Germany once before a two-week vacation and three times after it. Emotional exhaustion, a core part of burnout, dropped and work engagement rose after the break, and both gains had faded within one month. More time pressure and more pupil misbehavior after the break went with exhaustion coming back faster. Relaxing in free time went with a slower fade two weeks after the break, though the link was no longer clear at four weeks.⁶

The study is observational: the teachers chose to take part and were not assigned to light or heavy returns. Charlotte Fritz and Sabine Sonnentag’s 2006 study of 221 university employees in Germany points the same way; its abstract says that workload measured two days after the vacation predicted some of the outcomes.⁷ Neither study measured the size of anyone’s inbox. A backlog is one of the demands a return adds, and in our search no study had isolated its effect.

Two colleagues come back on the same Monday. One arranged cover, has a quiet morning blocked for catching up and one meeting after lunch. The other finds that every meeting postponed during her absence has been moved to her first day, plus a deadline that crept forward. The second return asks far more of day one, and the research suggests her benefit may wear off sooner. If you change only one thing, move the meetings and deadlines that would pile onto your first day.

How to get back into work after a vacation

The best steps for an easier return lighten the first demands and protect some rest afterward. The studies above show that demands and relaxation after a break matter but did not test routines such as buffer days or inbox sorting, so the steps are practical suggestions built on those findings. Not every job allows all of them; shift workers, caregivers and people whose calendars are set by others can pick the ones within reach.

1. Week beforeHand over, buffer day, out-of-office
2. First day backSort the inbox, block time, few meetings
3. First weeksOne holiday habit, next break, relaxing evenings

1. Hand over your work and agree what can wait

In the week before you go, list the open items and name who covers each one. Then agree with your manager which items can simply wait until you are back. Every item that is covered or deferred is one less demand landing on your first morning, and the German teacher study linked heavier demands after the break to a faster fade.⁶

2. Book a buffer day between the trip and work

If your leave allows it, come home a day before work starts. Use it to unpack, wash clothes and buy food, so the household catch-up is done before your first working day. No study in this article tested a buffer day; it is cheap, and it moves some of the return’s load to a day without job demands.

3. Write an auto-reply that promises no instant answers

An auto-reply that says you are not reading email, names who to contact for urgent matters and gives a reply date one day after you are back leaves you room on the first day. The guide to out-of-office messages has templates and a short pre-leave routine.

4. Sort the inbox before you answer anything

On the first morning, read before you reply. Open messages from your manager and your cover first, archive anything sent only for your information, skip threads already closed, and flag the few that need you, in order of deadline.

5. Block time and keep the first day light on meetings

Put a block in your calendar for catching up, and a short handback talk with whoever covered for you. Keep other meetings to the few that cannot move. A calendar like this keeps the first day’s demands closer to an ordinary day’s; lighter demands after the break went with a slower fade among the German teachers.⁶

6. Keep one holiday habit going

Pick one small thing you enjoyed on the trip and keep it for the first weeks: a morning walk, reading before bed, a long lunch outside, cooking something new. De Bloom’s team suggested, without testing it, that brief daily writing about good vacation experiences might help the benefits last longer.³

7. Put your next break in the calendar

A future break gives you something to look forward to. In the Dutch panel survey, people who were about to go on holiday were slightly happier than people who were not, possibly, the authors suggest, because they were looking forward to the trip; the difference was small.¹ It need not be long; a long weekend counts.

8. Give your evenings something relaxing

For the first few weeks, protect some evenings for things that calm you down: a walk, a bath, music, a meal with friends. Teachers who relaxed more in their free time after the vacation held on to its benefits better two weeks later, though not clearly at four weeks.⁶ If work keeps following you home, the techniques for switching off and not thinking about work at night can help draw the line.

Your return plan

• List open items and name who covers each one
• Settle with your manager which tasks can wait
• Book a buffer day at home before work starts
• Set an out-of-office that names contacts and a reply date
• Block a catch-up slot and a handback talk on day one
• Keep one holiday habit for the first weeks
• Put the next break in the calendar
• Protect a few relaxing evenings

When low mood after a holiday is something else

The World Health Organization describes a depressive episode as low mood or a loss of interest that lasts for most of each day, on almost every day, for at least two weeks, and it differs from ordinary ups and downs.⁸ If the feeling after a holiday deepens instead of fading, talk to a doctor.

The UK’s NHS puts the difference plainly: depressiondepression: A common mental health condition in which low mood or loss of interest lasts most of the day, nearly every day, for weeks, along with changes such as poor sleep, tiredness or trouble concentrating. It is diagnosed by a clinician, and effective treatments exist.Full entry in the glossary is more than feeling unhappy or fed up for a few days, and people with depression feel persistently sad for weeks or months.⁹ Other signs on WHO’s list include tiredness and low energy, poor sleep, changes in appetite, poor concentration, hopelessness and thoughts of dying or suicide. WHO also notes that effective treatments for depression exist.⁸

If you went away already exhausted and hoped the trip would fix it, the evidence on whether a vacation helps burnout covers what a break can and cannot do. WiserHours sorted the routes below into three tiers by urgency; the advice in each comes from WHO, IASP, the NIMH in the US and the NHS in the UK:

• Today: if a life may be at risk, call your local emergency number. For thoughts of suicide or self-harm, IASP points to Find A Helpline, a directory of free, confidential services covering over 150 countries.¹⁰ For the US, NIMH’s advice is 911 or the nearest emergency room when a life is in danger, and a call or text to 988, the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.¹¹ For the UK, the NHS lists 999 or A&E for emergencies, NHS 111 for urgent advice, and Samaritans on 116 123.¹²
• Soon: book a visit with a family doctor (a GP in the UK) if the low mood has lasted most of the day, nearly every day, for two weeks or more, the WHO pattern above.⁸ The NHS says it is important to seek help from a GP if you think you may be depressed.⁹
• Routine: raise it at your next check-up if every return from a break brings a long slump (a WiserHours suggestion, not a named body’s advice).

The bottom line

The first week back is usually the hardest, and in a study of German teachers, a heavy first stretch at work went with a faster fade of the holiday’s lift. Before your next trip, arrange cover, add a buffer day at home and keep your first day back light on meetings. If low mood stays with you most of the day for two weeks or more, talk to a doctor.