10
Loading video...
By Melissa Fleur Afshar
Reporter
0
Share
Newsweek is a Trust Project member
See more of our trusted coverage when you search.Prefer Newsweek on Googleto see more of our trusted coverage when you search.
The workday ends around 5 p.m. for most, but the tension does not always switch off.
More than half of Americans say they find it hard to relax after work, according to a 2026 RS Group study of 1,000 U.S. employed respondents. The habits many reach for instead—scrolling, streaming, zoning out in front of a screen—may feel like rest or a quick way to decompress, but psychologists say they are usually not. Still, rather than switching off, many are simply switching channels, carrying the mental residue of the workday into activities that distract without actually restoring them.
Newsweek spoke to five mental health experts to understand why so many people are resting wrong, and what genuine recovery actually requires.
Read More on Life
Trade Balance for Seasons
Jenny Maenpaa, a licensed clinical social worker, told Newsweek that chasing daily equilibrium is often the wrong way to try and instill a sense of balance and harmony.
"It may be healthier and more sustainable to allow for seasons to come and go," she said. "We can try to divide our lives into perfect formulas, but life is too unpredictable for that."
Maenpaa pointed to psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's concept of "flow," the immersive focus that drives satisfaction and motivation, arguing that permission to dive fully into one demanding season, perhaps to lock in for a work project—followed by deliberate attention to sleep, movement, relationships and screen-free time once it ends—beats forcing balance every day, which may be difficult to achieve.
"You may find that allowing your life to be imbalanced for a season brings more peace than seeking perfect balance," she said.
Psychiatrist Julia Samton framed things similarly. She told Newsweek that recovery matters more than symmetry.
"Psychological wellbeing depends less on perfectly splitting each day between work and life and more on alternating demanding responsibilities with adequate recovery over time," she said, adding that downtime should be used to replenish sleep, exercise, nutrition and neglected relationships.
Rest Is What Makes Ambition Sustainable
Chloë Bean, a California-based somatic trauma therapist, told Newsweek that rest should not be seen as a concession to ambition, but its foundation.
"Rest is what makes the ambition push sustainable," she said. "If you're burning out, you can't keep going.
"The body will react; through illness, panic or shutdown you didn't schedule."
...
Her advice? Learn to read your own capacity, and honor recovery "before the body enforces it."
Build a 'Fake Commute'
When it comes to resting the right way, for remote and hybrid workers, one of the biggest obstacles to genuine downtime is the loss of a natural boundary between office and home. Anthony Thompson, a business psychologist, told Newsweek that the daily commute once served an underrated psychological purpose.
"It acted as a liminal space that helped people's minds separate work from home," he said, creating "a clear temporal boundary" that let the brain switch into relaxation mode.
Without it, Thompson said, the Zeigarnik effect takes hold—the tendency of unfinished tasks to linger in the mind until resolved. His fix is the "fake commute," where workers deliberately build a transition ritual into the start and end of the day, even without anywhere to go.
"This could involve going for a walk or to a coffee shop," he said, or "even catching a bus somewhere and back," simply to give the brain space to move out of work mode.
Replace Scrolling With Recovery
Matthew Leahy, a clinical psychologist, told Newsweek that with many default "unwinding" habits, from scrolling TikTok to surfing Netflix, unable to provide proper conditions for rest, we should look elsewhere to switch off.
He recommends a deliberate ritual—a walk, music, a workout, meditation—that "signals that the workday is over," and asking what the day actually depleted, whether that be mental energy, emotional reserves or social bandwidth. The most restorative activity, he said, is "the one that replenishes what was actually depleted, rather than whatever is easiest in the moment."
Leahy is especially bullish on one underused tool, nature.
"Even relatively little time outdoors can help people slow down, regulate stress, and feel mentally restored," he said, adding that a porch, a park, or a short neighborhood walk can be enough.
Genuine recovery, he continued, comes from engaging with what matters, not numbing out, and making space throughout the week for what is meaningful, rather than treating rest as something earned only at day's end.
The stakes are tied to a bigger cultural reckoning, too.
The "work-life balance," long held up as the goal, is being questioned by some of the most successful people in the world.
Scarlett Johansson, who has built a fortune estimated at $165 million, has recently admitted she still, at 41 and following several industry accolades, struggles to achieve it. Earlier, Barack Obama said that anyone chasing excellence—in sports, music, business or politics—will inevitably hit stretches where they are out of balance. And Emma Watson, of Harry Potter fame, has described her punishing filming schedules as making a balanced life seem almost impossible.
If even the most successful and supported cannot find balance, the more realistic goal may well be what the experts advise; learning how to rest well within the inevitable imbalance.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Sirena Bergman and Emma Lee-Sang
View 0 Comments
Submit Correction
View Editorial & AI Guidelines