How to Help Your Brain Switch Off From Work
The Mind On Overdrive
You know the feeling. You’re lying in bed at night, exhausted and desperate for a good night’s sleep, but your mind won’t switch off. Or you meet up with friends and family, wanting to enjoy yourself, but a work problem hijacks your thoughts and conversation. Maybe you find yourself replaying a moment from work, imagining how you should have handled it differently.
Sometimes it’s not even stress, it’s excitement. You’re deep into a project you love, and you struggle to stop working in the evenings, finding it hard to be present with those around you. Our minds are obsessed with our jobs. But is the only solution a neuro-surgical chip, like in the TV show Severance, to literally split our work and home selves?
The Brain: A Lack of Dissociation
Think back to a time when no one worked from home. You physically left your house, stepped into an office, spent the day immersed in work problems, then returned home and left those worries behind. The separation was built into the day.
Today, that clear boundary is gone. We work from home, live at work, and the two worlds have collapsed into one. Our brains are struggling because they rely heavily on association. The hippocampus, which encodes relationships between items and events, creates strong links between environments and emotions (1). Your desk, kitchen table, even the smell of your coffee can unconsciously prime you to enter "work mode."
This is known as priming. It is why bedtime routines help make you sleepy, and why commutes, for all their downsides, gave people a mental reset. Without clear environmental cues, your brain doesn’t know when it’s time to work and when it’s time to rest.
Psychological detachment and being able to mentally switch off is crucial for recovery and wellbeing (2).While working from home can boost focus and productivity, the hidden cost is that we find it harder to turn off. Over time, it affects not just your personal stress levels, but your relationships too.
So no, we don't need a severance procedure. But we do need better tools to help our brains create separation.
How to Help Your Brain Switch Off
1. Get Out of the House
If you have the option to go into the office a few days a week, take it. Not just for the meetings or the change of scenery, but because it helps your brain separate "work mode" from "home mode." If you’re freelance or remote, try working from a café, library, or co-working space now and again.
It’s not just about changing your environment either. Real, face-to-face social interactions significantly improve wellbeing, sometimes even more than time with family (3,4). Isolation, especially when we’re overwhelmed, can make problems seem worse. Sometimes getting out is exactly what your mind and body need most.
2. Create End-of-Work Rituals
Not everyone has the luxury of a home office, but you can still create a mental distinction between work and life. At the end of the workday, close the laptop, tidy away your desk, and physically signal to your brain that work is done. If you can, work in a separate space and shut the door when you’re finished.
And please, never work in bed. If you wake up and feel tempted to check your emails, physically move to your work setup instead. Your brain needs bed to mean sleep, not spreadsheets.
3. Stop Talking About Work Constantly
Talking about work problems constantly reinforces the very mental pathways you're trying to weaken. The more you talk about it, the more automatic those thoughts become.
If you want to think about work less, start by talking about it less. Ask other people about their days. Practice active listening. You’ll be surprised how much lighter you feel after even one work-free conversation.
4. Write Tomorrow’s To-Do List Today
At the end of your day, write down tomorrow’s to-do list. It’s a simple trick, but it makes a big difference. It gives your brain permission to let go of work because you’ve "captured" tomorrow’s tasks already.
This taps into a concept called cognitive offloading (6)where we delay our intentions to later in time, freeing up mental space so you’re not ruminating all evening.
5. Take Real Holidays
When your brain refuses to switch off, it’s often a sign you need a proper break. Research shows holidays significantly boost wellbeing, especially when they involve physical activity and full psychological detachment (5).
Even a short weekend break without work emails can be enough to reset your mind. The key is actually switching off to create that psychological detachment, not just working in a different location.
6. Don’t Work Right Before Bed
Working late at night might feel productive, but it wrecks your body’s natural sleep rhythms. Your cortisol levels may spike and your brain doesn’t get the memo that it’s time for rest.
If you want real recovery, you need a genuine wind-down in the evenings. Reading, a slow walk, light-hearted TV — anything non-work-related will help your nervous system shift gears.
7. Play More
When was the last time you did something purely for fun? Playfulness isn’t just for kids. In adults, it’s linked to better life satisfaction, more positive emotions, and lower stress (7,8).
Overthinking about work might just indicate you’re taking life a bit too seriously. You don’t need wild nights out or expensive hobbies. Play could mean card and board games, dancing, sports, time with the kids or pets. Anything that brings joy.
8. Move Your Body Mindfully
If your mind won’t switch off, your body can help. Movement is one of the best ways to interrupt rumination (replaying thoughts and scenarios in your head) (9). Any exercise is good, but mindful practices like yoga or slow walks are especially effective at calming the brain and body. An intense workout is great for energy, but if you find yourself wired and your goal is relaxation, try slower, more deliberate forms of movement too.
The Bigger Picture
It’s important to remember: this isn’t just your personal failure to "cope better." Our working culture has changed drastically in the last few years, and not always for the better. Some roles come with built-in stress. Some leadership styles promote unhealthy norms. Some jobs we feel so passionate about we struggle to stop.
You can't control everything about your workplace. But you can take small steps to rebuild the mental boundaries that modern work has eroded. And when you do, your mind, brain, body, and relationships will thank you for it.
So, for now, maybe psychological detachment is a better alternative to a severed brain.
I’m Dr Emily Clements, a neuroscientist, educator and yoga teacher. Over the span of five years, I studied the brains of entrepreneurs to understand why some people pursue their passions while others hold back. Now my mission is to share practical, science-backed tools to help people gain more control over their minds, bodies and careers to create the life they want. Follow along or sign up for my newsletter to learn more.
References
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