TT Rating Sharply Declining

My tactics rating was making rapid progress before but now it seems to be the other way around. I went overseas for about 5 weeks. When I got back, it all was fine at first, but then it started to go down. I lost 50 rating points in about three days. I don't actually care about the rating. I just want to know why this is. I find I'm failing majority of my problems. Am I actually getting worse, or is it something else? If so, what can I do?

I'll go from 1530 down to 1450, then 1450 up to 1480, then a particularly bad stretch will put me down to 1380, then I'll work my way back up to 1515 before I fall down to 1450 again and work back up.

I think it's nothing more than growing pains.

The same happens to me, somedays I'm just a bit nervous or stressed for something else and I can fluctuate in almost +/- 100 points a single day, failing a lot of problems. But at the next couple of days I recover those points solving well the 80% of the problems. When this happens, I try to calm down and to think better, then I spend much more time per puzzle but I can solve them well and I "only" lose 5 points.

May be that there are some days that you are more tired than normal or that you are just thinking in something else and it affects your concentration? 

Alright then. This is the first time for me. How long does it take for you to fall?

50 points ? Don't worry about it.

Dealing with weird work shifts and sometimes playing while being tired, my rating easily fluctuates by 100-150 points, and who cares ?

What counts is the fun I have playing.

The problem is that I don't have fun failing when I shouldn't be. I like to be consistant. I'm not use to fluctuation.

What about the clock? When thinking too much about a problem it also affects your rating. For example, the following is a comparison between my "evolution" in Chess.com tactics and in Chesstempo. At least in my case I'm more consistent when I have not a clock and I can calm down when thinking about a problem:

I do spend a lot of time thinking about moves that are very simple, fearing there is something better.

If it makes you feel better, a few years ago I was up to 1800.  Of course that was when I was doing 50 to 100 puzzles a day (often more).  A few dozen resets of the TT later and I have trouble staying over 1400.  

That doesn't make me feel better. It only makes me feel sorry for you.

Thanks for the sympathy, but I just had a good run and I'm back up to 1650.  Success is so dependent on your mood and mental sharpness.  Doing them first thing in the morning is probably not a good idea...

I have a hard time finding the right time to do it. The button never turns green when you want it to.

I would just look at the problems you got wrong

to the extent that you understand your error, and can more or less pinpoint why you would find the correct answer if you faced the problem again, you have learned from it

rating is just a reflection... don't look at the finger, or you will miss all that heavenwy gwowy

I wonder about this.  It really seems like the rating on the problems plummet sometimes.  My guess is that a whole lot of people who mess around with chess on and off, who do tactics books or whatnot, will come on during holidays, vacations, breaks, and massively alter the ratings of problems.  Perhaps college students will, en masse, do some puzzles during the week or two after midterms, etc.  Just a hypothesis.  Only someone with access to problems statistics and player account information would be able to tell for sure.