SUFFERING FROM POST SEASON SYNDROME. THEN YOU NEED HELP
Do you have mental cravings for the mountains? Do you display addictive behaviour when it comes to snow sports and a psychological dependency on shredding? Then you are a Snow Junky.
If you think you are a Snow Junky, chances are you are currently exhibiting signs of PSS, Post Season Syndrome. Use our symptoms checker – and then seek immediate treatment.COMMON SIGNS OF PSS
APATHY
Your skis/snowboard kit hasn’t moved from the hallway.
COMPULSIVE BEHAVIOUR
You’re surrounded by a pile of online ski and snowboard purchases from the Sales that you really don’t need, but, hey, it’s all been radically marked down and you’re saving 200 euros.
You're wondering just how long you can drag it out to find what the 'rents call a 'proper' job - and the price of a flight to New Zealand.
You catch yourself staring at your Facebook cover photo of your Lo-Fi mountain sunset or GoPro still of your midair backflip.
You click on any links that mention skiing or snowboarding or snow which is, er, why you're reading this.
STRANGE HABITS
Heading out clubbing, your friends are in ridiculously tight dresses/ smart shirts – and you’re wearing your salopettes/ beanie combo.
You've joined a ski/snowboard forum and found yourself chatting randomly about the difference between golf and skiing; anything to keep talking about skiing/snowboarding.
CRAVINGS
A beer at 3pm? A Jagerbomb at 2am?
UNCONTROLLABLE URGES
Levels, (Good Feeling Remix) by Avicii comes on the airwaves and you want to put on skiboots and jump on your kitchen table like you’re back at Folie.
Natives is one of your top visited sites. Proper job versus seasonaire? Suddenly no contest.
Your friends' eyes are glazing over every time you start a sentence with: 'This one time during my season...', which is every time you start a sentence.
LACK OF CONCENTRATION
You keep clicking on Twitter and Facebook to check if anyone you know is going to the mountains anytime soon.
SELF HARM
To prevent your savings turning into Kiwi dolla, family and friends have to stage an intervention.
The only way you can kick the habit of checking the calendar is to tattoo the start of the season on your arm.
You keep watching park, ski and snowboard edits over and over again even though it sucks so much that you’re not doing it you feel the pain.
You have the physio/ osteo on speed dial to straighten out/loosen up knees/hips that only seem to cane when you stop skiing/snowboarding.
Diagnosis
Do you have any – or all - of the above symptoms? Then there’s only one diagnosis: PSS. There is no cure, even when you’re old and your teeth fall out.
But there are ways to ease the pain of PSS: Post Season Syndrome.
Treatment
Alternative therapy: Take regular doses of manmade snow, cold air and freestyle at an indoor snow centre. Or take up another extreme sport such as kitesurfing or skydiving. Or hit the skatepark.
Quick fix: Have that beer at 3pm, put on the jacket that was 600 euros, grab your ski boots that are still in the hallway, turn up the volume on Good Feeling – and dance on that table. Until 2am when it's time for the Jagerbomb.
Short term cure: Treat with one return flight to NZ (beware could lead to haemorrhaging of your bank account).
Long term remedy: Book your holiday – or arrange your seasonaire work – for next winter. And stare at your confirmation email whenever you feel PSS coming on.
Self help: Admit ‘I am a Snow Junky’ and join Altitude Abstinence meetings at your local pub where you can down beers in one and hug it out.
Cold turkey: Just suck it up and wait till December.
Enter rehab: When you’ve got a serious addiction and an intervention won’t help, then rehab is the only answer. We give major thanks to the snow gods for Snow Rehab*. It's the ultimate cure for PSS: train to become a ski instructor and you’ll never suffer from PSS again as you can teach in the Northern Hemisphere for six months and then switch to the powder in New Zealand and the Southern Hemisphere. You’re cured for life.
*For Snow Rehab, you check in to either Revelstoke or Big White in Canada. There are no ‘group talks’ or ‘health walks’ in this rehab. Instead, you’re required to get up early every day to go shred on your board for 5-6 hours in some of the world's best powder. And once training’s over, you can hit the park or just chill in a hot tub. They even have Backcountry Awareness Courses plus shorter Training Courses and Improver Courses if you fancy a quick fix. If you try to make us go to this rehab, there’s no way we’d be saying no.
