[Healthy Living in the 100-Year Life Era] To Overcome Holiday Aftereffects, You Need to Take a 'Buffer Time'

Many people experience disrupted daily rhythms and accumulated fatigue after the holidays, making it difficult to focus on work upon returning to their jobs. Most holiday fatigue stems from a lack of sleep and disruption of the biological rhythm due to changes in sleep patterns. To reduce holiday fatigue, it is beneficial to allow for so-called "buffer time." Rather than returning home late on the last night of the holiday or early the next morning, it is better to come back home more leisurely, around the morning of the previous day, and spend some time relaxing by listening to music or talking with family. By allowing this buffer time, one can readjust from the disrupted posture during the holiday period to daily life, enabling the creation of a normal work atmosphere when going to work the next day.

Many people catch colds after the holiday ends because the tension they maintained during the holiday suddenly relaxes. It is important to dress appropriately to cope well with the cold and dry temperature changes. Doing light calisthenics on the morning of the workday and stretching every 2 to 3 hours at the workplace to relax tense muscles, as well as taking a walk in the sunlight after lunch, are also good ways to relieve fatigue.

Holiday foods tend to be high in calories, and enjoying these foods can ultimately lead to weight gain. Representative holiday foods such as tteok (rice cakes) are carbohydrates themselves, jeon (Korean pancakes) are high in oil, and hangwa or yakgwa (traditional sweets) contain a lot of sugar. In addition, decreased physical activity, stress, and lack of sleep can contribute to weight gain. It is best to plan ahead to prevent weight gain during the holiday period, but if weight gain occurs, it is advisable to immediately set a plan and take action after the holiday ends to lose the gained weight in a short period.

First, limit carbohydrate intake and focus meals on protein and vegetables. Increasing the intensity or duration of exercise compared to usual is another method. It is known that consuming 500 kcal less than the daily energy requirement helps with weight loss, but alternatively, eating 250 kcal less and adding exercise that burns 250 kcal can also be effective.

If managing weight alone is difficult, consulting an obesity specialist is recommended. Obesity medications can be considered if the body mass index (BMI) is 30 kg/m2 or higher, or if it is 27 kg/m2 or higher with weight-related comorbidities such as diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia, sleep apnea, asthma, or coronary artery disease. New obesity medications are about to be released; among them, Wegovy, which recently caused shortages in the United States, has not yet been launched domestically but is an injectable obesity treatment produced by Novo Nordisk, the Danish pharmaceutical company that developed Saxenda, and follows the same mechanism. It is a GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1) receptor agonist, originally developed as a diabetes treatment, but it not only controls blood sugar but also suppresses appetite, resulting in weight loss effects and thus has been approved as an obesity treatment.

In clinical trials, Saxenda showed an average weight loss of 8% over 56 weeks of use, while Wegovy demonstrated an average weight loss of 15% over 68 weeks. However, these medications should always be used as adjuncts to proper eating habits and regular exercise to be effective for weight loss and maintenance.

Jo In-Young, Department of Family Medicine, Samsung Medical Center

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.