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The Holiday Hangover — Why Emotional Exhaustion Hits Hard in January

Where’d that holiday go? Did I even have one?

Karen Nimmo
On The Couch
Published in
4 min readJan 17, 2025

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Photo by Sophie Dale on Unsplash

You’ve only been back at work a week and you’re already feeling the pain. The benefits of a relaxing break seem to have evaporated.

You’re supposed to have hit the ground running — new challenges at work, new goals to pursue. Instead, you’re feel weary and overwhelmed as the stress dial winds up; daunted at the thought of the year ahead.

Welcome to the holiday hangover.

Holiday hangover?

The holiday hangover, also known as the back to work blues, is that period of physical and mental readjustment that follows the holiday season. Just like a traditional hangover, it doesn’t feel good.

It can be caused by several factors: the holiday adrenalin rush wears off, loose schedules are replaced with nine-to-five work and school routines, meetings, deadlines and, come the end of January, kids’ activities and school pick-ups.

Post-holiday, you may miss spending quality time with family and friends — or you may feel you spent too much of the holidays with them and crave some alone time! It may also have highlighted your loneliness, within a relationship or on your own. Or reignited an old conflict, that…

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On The Couch
On The Couch

Published in On The Couch

Practical psychology for health and happiness. Owned/Edited by clinical psychologist and writer Karen Nimmo.

Karen Nimmo
Karen Nimmo

Written by Karen Nimmo

Clinical psychologist, author of 4 books. Editor of On the Couch: Practical psychology for health and happiness. karen@onthecouch.co.nz

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