Ordinary days

Not everything after an experience is about the experience. Sleep, regular food, work, dishes, seeing the people you usually see — in one survey of 608 people with extended difficulties, this kind of ordinary routine was among the things people said helped. The researchers called it task-based coping; most people would call it getting on with the week.

Returning to normal life is not avoiding the experience. For many people it is exactly how the experience finds its proper size — one thing that happened, among everything else that is happening.

Rest, warmth, and simple food can help in the days after. You do not have to work on anything.