January blues Britons take 4 days to get in work mode

BRITONS take an average of four days to get back in the saddle after the holidays, research has found.

The majority of us will not function properly until almost a full working week has passed.

The feeling of having nothing to look forward to, readjusting to early mornings, the mountain of work which has piled up and having to deal with challenging clients all take their toll in early January. The study said 44 per cent of adults say they suffer from the January blues, and 52 per cent said during the early part of the month,they will be at work in body, but not “in mind”.

Three in 10 said they were expecting work to be awful because they cannot have any time off for a while, and a fifth said they were likely to return to a big workload.

And a quarter were not looking forward to everyone else being miserable about the return to work.

More than a fifth had considered calling in sick for the first few days back to work, while more than half were expecting to feel sad the evening before their first day.

Lack of cash means we are unlikely to go shopping in the January sales and Britons also dislike social media being full of weight-loss plans and everyone is doing a dry January, the study of 2,000 adults said.

The fact there are still months left of winter to go, feeling tired and sluggish are other major reasons adults find this month a chore.

The study was commissioned by the SPANA charity, which provides care for working animals overseas. Geoffrey Dennis, chief executive of SPANA, said: “Going back to work after time off can be a shock – especially after a sustained period of parties, lie-ins and relaxation.

“However, most of us are fortunate to be returning to jobs that we feel comfortable in, with decent colleagues and reasonable working conditions.”