When the brain refuses to switch off

Instead of relaxing, we are 'stresslaxing' more and more with work on our minds even when we are not workingFor Preeti Pandey, a 23-year-old sales intern in Varanasi, even a sick leave comes with anxiety. Instead of simply resting, she worries about falling behind and whether colleagues might see her as less hardworking or committed. The body may have stopped working, but the mind has not. It is a feeling many people recognise—and one that now has a name. “Stresslaxing”, the term everyone seems to be talking about, describes the strange anxiety or guilt that appears precisely when a person tries to relax.Modern life has made switching off particularly difficult. Work messages, pending errands, grocery lists, family responsibilities, bills, appointments and dozens of small unfinished jobs can continue to occupy the mind long after the working day is technically over. Even leisure can begin to feel like another task squeezed between obligations.“Relaxing has become difficult because there are just so many tasks running in the modern mind. Before you can relax, there is often this feeling that everything has to be finished first,” says Kartik R., a Bengaluru-based freelance corporate counsellor. “One practical thing people can do is make a list of the tasks that absolutely need to be completed before they switch off. You cannot wind up everything in life, but if you finish the essentials, there is at least some relief and it becomes easier to allow yourself to rest.”Recent research reflects this increasingly blurred line between work and recovery. A 2026 national study of 3,987 university faculty members across India found that greater screen exposure, longer working hours and poorer sleep were linked with burnout. Participants averaged about five hours of daily screen exposure and, on average, reported poor sleep quality. Researchers found that increased screen time was associated with longer working hours, while more sleep appeared to protect against burnout. For Suman Dwivedi, a 38-year-old marketing manager in Delhi, the problem does not disappear even on a day away from work. Her mind can move almost immediately to what needs to be cooked, whether groceries have been bought and what else needs to be organised at home. The official workday may have stopped, but another mental checklist has simply taken its place.That mental load can be particularly heavy for women. A 2025 Indian study on working women with young children found that invisible household and caregiving labour significantly predicted both cognitive overload and burnout. Researchers argued that the constant mental work involved in keeping track of domestic responsibilities can itself become psychologically exhausting.Psychologists often describe this as an inability to move out of a state of constant alertness. If a person has spent years associating productivity with responsibility, achievement or even self-worth, doing nothing can begin to feel uncomfortable. Instead of calm, an empty afternoon can produce thoughts such as ‘I should be doing something’, ‘I am wasting time’ or ‘I am falling behind’.Technology has made that boundary even thinner. Leaving the office once meant physically leaving work behind. Today, WhatsApp groups, emails and notifications travel home. A person may not answer a message, but simply seeing it can bring work straight back into the mind.The answer may not be trying to become perfect at relaxation either. A holiday packed with activities, an aggressively scheduled wellness routine or even meditation treated as another target can simply turn rest into another performance.The more useful shift may be learning to leave some things unfinished. There will always be another email, errand or household job. Sometimes the real challenge is accepting that the day does not have to be completely conquered before the mind is allowed to stop.Subscribe to India Today Magazine- Ends