If it is difficult for children to get used to going back to school and for adults to return to the office, equally older people find it difficult to resume their routine after the summer holidays. Visiting children, sightseeing trips, leaving the residences where they live the rest of the year, spending a lot of time with the grandchildren … Any change in their day-to-day life can make it more difficult to return to their daily activities later.
What is post-vacation syndrome
Many times, the return from vacation usually leads to the call postvacational syndrome, a state that can last up to 15 days and that it can also affect the elderly. It usually appears when the return to the routine is not faced or the readjustment to obligations or lifestyle becomes difficult, especially if it is uninteresting or rather negative.
The fact is that brain activity also needs a readjustment to our daily habits. And older people can also experience mental, emotional and cognitive changes that lead to postvaal syndrome or find it difficult to return to a “calmer” life again.
The Spanish Society of Neurology (SEN) points out that post-vacation syndrome can affect grandparents who have been very involved in caring for their grandchildren during the summer. Summer vacations are a long period for children, but they are not so long for their parents, so many leave the little ones in the care of their grandparents. It is estimated that half of grandparents spend more than six hours a day caring for their grandchildren.
And it turns out that the more time you spend with a person, the stronger your bond becomes and the more powerful your emotional relationship. In addition, in the case of older people, these ties make them physically and emotionally activated, in a way that is beneficial for them. Specifically, it delays the cognitive decline typical of the years. Therefore, when they separate or spend less time with their relatives – children and grandchildren – with whom they have shared the holidays, it becomes hard for them.
How the elderly should face the return from vacation
To avoid the low mood that can arise after the holidays, specialists recommend:
- Keep a positive attitude.
- Try to recover the normal hours before joining the routine.
- Advance the return from vacation a couple of days to make the readjustment to habits easier.
- Have split vacation instead of a whole month.
- Practice sport to release endorphins and avoid sadness.
- Retrieve the gradually rhythm and take things with Calm down.
- Stop thinking about the holidays you have had and look ahead.
- Spend a small period of time a day doing personal leisure.
- Think about the next getawayNot next summer, which is far away.
- To incorporate a habit acquired during the holidays to everyday life, like having breakfast reading the newspaper.
The daily life of the elderly must be attractive
According to the Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy, routine is the habit or acquired habit of doing things by mere practice in a more or less automatic way. In the case of the elderly, following some routines in their daily life gives them confidence and makes them feel committed and motivated. But for this, your daily activities should be attractive, so it is best that they choose them themselves.
According to a survey conducted by the Department of Evolutionary and Educational Psychology of the University of Barcelona, leisure activities occupy most of the time of the elderly, which suggests that their life may be according to their preferences. However, most of that leisure is watching television and is not dedicated to sports, educational activities, chatting, going for a walk with friends or playing, for example.
In general, their ideal day was very similar to the day before when study participants were asked. However, the researchers also found that older people would like to spend much less time alone and more time with family, in addition to investing more time in activities outside the home.
For this reason, it is necessary to ensure that their day to day, wherever they live – at home, with their children, in a residence – is as they want. Thus, the ideal routine for the elderly should:
- Respect their way of interact with people, objects and places.
- Contain activities that they can perform, they safe and be according to your physical or health condition, in addition to having fun.
- Include things related to the work they did when they were active at work.
- Have tasks that do not generate stress or bore them and that are varied and constant.
