Therapy Hangovers: What You Might Need After a Session

Let’s face it, therapy can be an exhausting experience. You’re spending an hour or so talking about yourself and really examining your life and how you relate to it. Its normal to feel a little (or a lot) depleted after a session. This is typically referred to as the therapy hangover; the fatigue, emotional and physical exhaustion that results from talking about what we are typically trying to avoid. It is completely normal and expected to feel this way after some or all of your therapy sessions. It is important to take this into consideration and practice self- compassion as well as be intentional with how you take care of yourself after sessions. This is especially important when you are engaging in telehealth sessions as you don’t have normal travel time buffers to help with decompression. Here are a few ideas:

• SCHEDULING: Unfortunately, we can’t all fit a therapy session in when it is most convenient. Sometimes we have to schedule a session in the middle of our work day. Don’t be discouraged but do understand that you might need some time after the session to decompress, have some quiet and reflect on the last hour. If you can, schedule a few extra minutes after the session to give yourself time before expecting yourself to dive back into the day’s tasks.

• MOVE YOUR BODY: You just sat for an hour thinking about emotions and thoughts and everything else. Now is a great time to move your body. This will give you time to reflect but also change up your thought patterns a little bit. Taking a short walk or stretch can help signify to your brain that the session is over (especially if you just had a virtual session). Moving your body can also help to ground you back into the present moment instead of keeping you stuck in the last hour.

• GO OUTSIDE: You don’t need to be out there for long but going outside is yet another great way to ground yourself in the present moment. If you just had a virtual session, you just spent the last hour staring at a screen, you need to take a break from screens and reconnect with the physical world. While virtual therapy has many great benefits, its also another area of life where a screen plays a major role. If we are going to be engaged with so many screens we need to balance that time with the natural world.

• GET CREATIVE: You just connected with your emotions, yay! Use that to connect to your creative side, whatever that means for you. It doesn’t need to be perfect or fit any parameters, allow yourself some time to just exist in a creative space and see what happens. You don’t need fancy materials or supplies either, use what you have.

• REWARD YOURSELF: Therapy is hard, you make a commitment to yourself and your well being each session you attend. Reward that commitment and acknowledge that its not always easy to show up.

• CONNECT WITH OTHERS: Check in with yourself and see if you need some social interaction. If you do, what kind of social interaction? Connect with those in your life that can provide that connection and maybe make it into a routine.

• ALLOW YOURSELF TO REST: Give yourself time to chill out. You just put in a large amount of emotional work, this is no easy task. Give yourself space to rest in whatever way that you might need.

• WRITE IT DOWN: Therapy still on your mind? Continue the reflection process and journal what is still coming up for you. Our healing and growth doesn’t usually fit neatly into an hour session, if you still have stuff swirling around up in your mind, let it out on paper!

It is essential to understand that therapy hangovers are normal and an expected outcome after sessions. If however, you are experiencing intense distress following a session that lingers for days, please talk to your provider about these reactions. It is important that overall, you check in with yourself and your needs. Of course, scheduling time for ourselves is always an issue when life demands so much from us. We need to provide ourselves a self-compassionate break after this emotional work in order to tackle whatever comes next. You deserve that time, so give it to yourself!

A note on telehealth and virtual sessions. While telehealth provides so many benefits to accessing therapy, the virtual aspect can sometimes lack the connection to our world and each other. In my practice, I work hard to connect with clients and try to make the therapeutic experience as close to an in-person experience as possible. It will never be exactly the same, however. It is essential following any virtual session to reconnect to the world around you and disconnect from the screen in order to truly reap the benefits of your work.