Tips To Beat the Post Holiday Blues

Anyone who has never had to face post-holiday blues, raise your hand. You may now leave this article because it’s for those of us who regularly go through a bout of depression when the holidays come to an end. When the merriment and joy of the festive season has worn off and the friends and family have taken off to go back to their lives, what we are left with is a bunch of great memories, and a long wait till the next time the holidays come around. And if you think you’re the only one feeling like that, take heart.

 Richard O’Connor, a psychotherapist who works in New York and Connecticut in the USA, author of an online article titled "Give Yourself Permission to Feel: How to Lessen Post-Holiday Blues", has a clinic which see more depressed people around the time the holidays end. Such clinics are getting very popular.

The best way to deal with such stress is to focus on the good and steer clear of the sad bits. So, if you’re feeling bad that the house is not as lively as it has been over the past few weeks, put on that holiday video and relive those beautiful moments. Don’t think about how far the next holidays are. Think about how many new and beautiful memories you have now.

Says Mrs. Agarwal of New Delhi whose two daughters come to visit her every winter and leave when their kids’ school reopen in January, “I have learned to live with it. When I feel sad that I’m alone again, I call up one of my old friends or their children who I couldn’t meet this vacation to remind myself that there are so many people who I love and who love me; and that it is not necessary to be with them all the time to know that I am loved.” And in this age of cellphones and internet, no one ever really leaves, do they. What are social networking sites for, after all?