Returning to work after a bank holiday weekend often triggers feelings of disappointment or fatigue.
Why do long weekends leave some workers feeling down?
A long bank holiday weekend offers the potential for extra relaxation and family time, but returning to work can expose underlying tensions. Siofra Mulqueen examined this phenomenon on RTÉ Radio 1’s History of the Weekend, 100 years after the Ford Motor Company introduced the standard five day week.
“If coming back to work is a problem, it could mean two things: the subjective feelings are enlarged, or work is becoming harder for people,” said Dr Bert van den Bergh, former associate professor at The Hague University of Applied Sciences and co-author and co-editor of The Social Pathologies of Contemporary Civilization.
How do personal boundaries affect return-to-work stress?
Individual career structures vary widely, from a 9-to-5 office worker to someone who works shifts in retail. However, mental separation between work and personal life often dictates how well an employee handles the transition back.
“One of the things I’ve noticed is that some people just generally have a good boundary with work and not working,” said Dr Kelly Dickson, associate professor in Global Health and Wellbeing at University College London and an Integrative Psychotherapist in clinical practice. “Whether it’s four days or three days, they can retain that boundary quite well and that line between when you’re working and not working is stronger for some people than it is for others.”
What role does the pressure of free time play?
The expectation to use an extra day off efficiently frequently turns leisure into another form of obligation. Consumerism has fed into the idea of fulfilling your time, with DIY and short getaways serving as examples of how these factors combine to create a sense of pressure.
“For some people, free time becomes work as well,” van den Bergh said. “They feel it has to be interesting, or that they have to do a lot. They impose on themselves a metre instead of fitting in with a rhythm.”
Dickson noted that short breaks sit in an awkward middle ground. An extra day is enough to do more, but not enough to switch off like you would if you were on holidays.
Does blaming Blue Monday hide deeper career dissatisfaction?
Researchers warn against using seasonal constructs like “Blue Monday” or casual “post-bank holiday blues” to dismiss persistent negative feelings about employment. Van den Bergh suggests that if such terms are used to explain away symptoms, it avoids the issue at hand.
“The same may go for post-bank holiday blues. When you speak about that, you don’t have to speak about the circumstances of your work, but when you have these blues when returning to work, there’s a problem there.”
How can people find genuine rest without strict purposes?
Overcoming the pressure of modern downtime requires giving oneself permission to simply rest. Dickson emphasized that leisure does not need to justify itself.
“They don’t need to become an identity, it’s just something you do, and that’s it.”
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