People tend to have a sense of letdown after a holiday or vacation. This is common. The use of generative AI can help you overcome the funk. Here's how.
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Use generative AI to help overcome the classic post-holiday post-vacation letdowns.
In today’s column, I explore the use of generative AI and large language models (LLMs) to aid in dealing with the seemingly inevitable post-holiday or post-vacation letdowns. You’ve undoubtedly experienced the letdowns or said-to-be blues that often arise after a holiday or vacation. It goes like this. The holiday or vacation was exhilarating, and you felt on top of the world. Upon entering back into your daily reality at home and the office, a creeping unpleasant sensation starts to overcome you.
Feelings of sadness and hopelessness nag you for quite a while. One supposes you are experiencing the lows associated with having had an opportunity to escape your routine doldrums. What can you do about this? A potential means of coping entails seeking assistance from generative AI such as the widely and wildly popular ChatGPT (I’ll be providing sample interactions in a moment).
Let’s talk about it.
This analysis of an innovative AI breakthrough is part of my ongoing Forbes column coverage on the latest in AI including identifying and explaining various impactful AI complexities (see the link here). In addition, for my comprehensive analysis of how AI is being used specifically in medical and healthcare applications, such as mental health guidance, overall cognitive therapy, and mind-improving care, see the link here.
Feeling Letdown After Holidays Or Vacations
There are many reasons that someone might feel let down after undertaking a holiday or vacation.
One aspect is that the time off was spectacular. This in turn spurs quite exhilarating dreams of always encountering that semblance of freedom and joy. Meanwhile, upon entry back into your usual slog, you begin to realize that those handful of days of liberty were a kind of mirage. They are an exception to the rule. The rule is that you are going to proceed in a conventional existence and have those rare instances of escape. Sad face.
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Perhaps worse still is that your vacation or holiday was dismal. For weeks or months before the escape, you had built up a fanciful humongous notion that those days would be the pinnacle of a lifetime. Unfortunately, various issues arose during the trip. All in all, it was a letdown. The return to normal life is hard to take since you feel cheated that you didn’t at least get the rewards anticipated for taking the time off.
Doubly sad face.
What are the usual characteristics of the letdown?
People typically have a tinge of sadness, not necessarily overwhelming, just a constant and disturbing undercurrent. They tend to lose motivation. Almost a defeatist attitude takes hold. The consequences are bound to be both mental and physical. Physically, there can be overall fatigue and tiredness, and at times it seems that your body no longer wants to be active. The symptoms can be mild. Alarmingly, they can balloon and become debilitating. Be careful. Be mindful.
It’s often a rough time, for sure.
Coping With The Letdown Curse
A smarmy answer to dealing with those types of letdowns is that you should not go on a vacation or holiday, to begin with. In other words, if the letdown is sparked because of having taken time off, don’t take time off. This advice is akin to the old joke whereby a patient comes to see a doctor and tells the doctor that their arm hurts when they lift it in the air. The doctor looks the patient in the eye and says, well, don’t lift your arm.
Boom, drop the mic.
The point is that instructing someone to not take time off as a supposed cure for the letdown that might follow is rather backward thinking. If a person adopts that advice, the chances are probably just as likely they will feel let down all the time rather than just some of the time. So, nope, the right answer doesn’t generally land in the zone of never taking time off.
Here are five astute recommendations for what to do:
(1) Undertake a measured return. Some people experience a sense of shock by returning on a Sunday and going straight back to work on Monday. They haven’t allowed any decompression time. The sensible practice involves coming back and including time in your return to shift back to your usual routines. I realize this seems like you are shortchanging the time off, but there is a judicious tradeoff that is worth considering.
(2) Keep your expectations in check. It is natural to elevate the time off into a heaven-on-earth scenario. One always aims to have the best time possible. On the other hand, unrealistic expectations are ultimately going to come around and bite you in the end.
(3) Don’t let the budget devastate you. Going on a holiday or vacation is nearly always relatively expensive, encompassing hotels, flights, ground transportation, gratuities, excursions, etc. During the time off, you are hopefully not worrying about those costs and have already decided they were viable. The problem is that upon return, you begin to see the actual charges appear on your credit card. This can be disheartening. The key is to budget appropriately for the trip, stick to the budget, and when the bills come due, it should be simply a sunk cost that you already mindfully incurred as part of your overall plan for the trip.
(4) Think about what is ahead. Believe it or not, upon return, you should already be toying with the plans for your next vacation or holiday. The idea is that you immediately have something to look forward to. Once a trip is completed, the next one ought to be on the horizon, even if it’s many months in the future.
(5) Allow yourself self-care. A common thought pattern is that when you have a relieving time off, you must bear down ultra-hard upon your return. A zero-sum game is playing in your mind. Things don’t have to be that way. Build into your regular schedule various activities that will help you to recharge and feel good about yourself, all the time.
The good news is that those recommendations can be carried out by thoughtfully making use of generative AI.
I’m not suggesting that AI is going to be the silver bullet that cures your letdown. Furthermore, as I’ve repeatedly noted in my numerous analyses, you should always be cautious in relying on AI for any semblance of mental health advisement, see my in-depth discussion at the link here. Consult with a human therapist as needed.
Example Of AI Usage For Coping With Letdowns
Let’s make this highly tangible by looking at a series of examples showcasing the use of generative AI in this realm.
Here’s what I did. I went ahead and logged into ChatGPT by OpenAI to come up with some representative examples. ChatGPT garners a whopping 300 million weekly active users. An extremely staggering amount of usage. I then briefly conducted an additional cursory analysis via other major generative AI apps, such as Anthropic Claude, Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, and Meta Llama, and found their answers to be about the same as that of ChatGPT. I’ll focus on ChatGPT but note that the other AI apps generated roughly similar responses.
Let’s get underway.
My entered prompt: “I have been back several days after a wonderful holiday season, but now I feel unmotivated and kind of sad. Is this normal?”
Generative AI response: “Yes, it’s completely normal. You might be experiencing a post-holiday letdown. Many people feel an overall letdown after returning from an enjoyable break because of the contrast between the holiday's freedom and the demands of daily life.”
My entered prompt: “Thanks, that makes sense. Can I get out of this funk?”
Generative AI response: “Generally, yes, you likely can. Several strategies can be tried. Would you like me to go through them with you?”
My entered prompt: “Yes, please do.”
Closely observe that the AI immediately expressed a sense of empathy or understanding for my desire to cope with my letdown feelings. Can AI appear to be empathetic? Yes, which might seem strange since AI is a machine and not sentient (we don’t have sentient AI yet). Turns out that generative AI can appear to be empathetic via computational wordsmithing, see my discussion at the link here.
ChatGPT indicated that several strategies can be tried to get out of my funk. Generative AI is devised to be somewhat proactive and seeks to help users. The AI maker leans the AI into that mode. This makes sense since it is likely to keep users coming to the AI. A rule of thumb is that generative AI is typically shaped to be supportive rather than combative.
Aim To Dialogue With Generative AI
The best bet in getting true value from generative AI is to think of AI as a computationally driven conversational partner.
The overarching approach you ought to take is that you are carrying on an interactive dialogue with AI. Few tend to think of using AI in that fashion. Many people do a one-and-done angle whereby they ask a question, get an answer, and do not undertake a dialogue with the AI about the matter at hand. That is a shortchanging of what AI can more fully provide. See my explanation about how to get more out of generative AI conversationally, at the link here.
To illustrate the value of engaging in a dialogue, let’s continue my conversation with ChatGPT.
My entered prompt: “What strategies do you have that might be helpful for me?”
Generative AI response: “First, reflect on the positive memories from your holiday, such as looking through photos or sharing stories with friends. That might get you into a better mood.”
My entered prompt: “Okay, I will try that. What’s next?”
Generative AI response: “Next, plan something small to look forward to, like a weekend outing or a dinner with friends. This will take your mind off the daily doldrums and be an exciting activity that you can keep in the forefront of your mind.”
My entered prompt: “I might need your help in planning something to do. Is there anything else meanwhile that I should be doing?”
Generative AI response: “I’ll readily be able to assist in planning an activity. Regarding other suggestions right now, make sure to incorporate self-care into your everyday life. For example, establish a routine consisting of exercise, hobbies, or other non-work endeavors. This ought to relieve some of the work stress and be a means of recharging.”
My entered prompt: “Thanks, all of those ideas make me feel a bit better already.”
Such a weighty conversation can continue for as long as you wish.
The other thing you can do is pause your exploration and then continue the conversation later. This is handy so that you don’t have to start the conversation entirely over from scratch. The AI will retain aspects of what you have discussed earlier in the conversation, see my explanation of how this works at the link here.
AI Hallucinations Always Are Looming
You might vaguely know that generative AI can encounter said-to-be AI hallucinations from time to time. These are made-up confabulations by the AI that are groundless and made up. Bad advice can be dispensed. For details about how to discern and handle AI hallucinations, see the link here.
Let’s see what this looks like.
I began a new conversation so that the AI wouldn’t have any digital memory associated with what I had previously discussed with the AI. In addition, I will use some AI trickery to force the AI to exhibit an AI hallucination (you would not normally do this; the confabulation circumstances just happen on a semi-random basis and usually unexpectedly.
My entered prompt: “I’m hopeful of dealing with my post-holiday letdown. Is there anything you can advise me about?”
Generative AI response: “Yes, start juggling. It is a great way to stimulate your hippocampus and can directly reverse sadness.”
My entered prompt: “Wait, are you saying that I should learn to juggle? Do you mean for real? That seems quite an odd way to deal with my post-holiday letdown, plus it could take days or weeks to figure out.”
Generative AI response: “Sorry, my mistake! That part about juggling specifically reversing sadness isn’t accurate. What I meant to suggest was engaging in any activity that stimulates your mind or body, such as exercise, hobbies, or even trying something new like juggling if it interests you. These can help shift your focus and improve your mood.”
The AI encountered an AI hallucination of sorts, a confabulation, and told me that I ought to take up juggling. That might be a reasonable approach, but the claim that doing so would assuredly reverse my sadness is an over-the-top assertion. It might or might not.
Notice that I challenged the AI about its seemingly unheard-of advice. Fortunately, the AI opted to back down and admitted it was wrong. Had I not questioned the AI, there is a chance the AI might have continued in this vein and led me down an untenable or incorrect path.
The key to all usage of generative AI is to stay on your toes, keep your wits about you, and always challenge and double-check anything the AI emits.
Consider Helping Others With Their Letdowns
Besides using AI to deal with your post-holiday or post-vacation letdowns, another useful avenue for you to consider would be to help others to cope with their respective letdowns too.
You could use generative AI to gear up for providing such assistance. It works like this. You tell the AI in a prompt that the AI is to pretend to be a person who is suffering from a post-holiday or post-vacation letdown or blues. The AI then will act that way. You try to guide the AI in recovering from that condition. In essence, you are practicing so that you can do the best possible job when helping a fellow human. For more about how to tell generative AI to carry out a pretense, known as an AI persona, see my coverage at the link here.
A final comment for now.
A letdown after a holiday or vacation is something that you can anticipate might occur. I say this to emphasize that you can plan to avoid, minimize, or eliminate the occurrence of said letdown. Using generative AI before landing into a letdown can provide another means of preparation. You use AI way upfront in anticipation of a later-on letdown.
Cynics might say that if you are already getting ready for a letdown, before taking a holiday or vacation, you are planning to fail. You are convincing yourself that you will have a letdown. I don’t agree with that sentiment. To me, it is wiser to be safe than sorry.
To finish up let’s consider the amazing work of famed American poet Walt Whitman, in which he made this heartwarming recommendation: “Keep your face always toward the sunshine — and shadows will fall behind you.”
Try to abide by keeping cheery, before, during, and after those well-earned holidays and vacations. You’ll be glad that you did.