The Recovery Paradox - The Cost Of You Not Switching Off.
(2 minute read)
The Recovery Paradox
Even after the workday ends, many professionals struggle to switch off. Their minds replay tough conversations, ruminate on unresolved problems, worry about future challenges, or question past decisions. This is known as the Recovery Paradox: the harder your day, the harder it is for your mind to rest (Sonnentag, 2018).
Demanding work involving high stress drains the energy needed to mentally detach. That’s why after back-to-back meetings or a day jumping from one thing to the next, your mind remains busy, replaying interactions or analysing events long after you leave work.
High-responsibility roles, tight deadlines, and complex decisions often make staying ‘switched on’ the default, and the cost is twofold:
Lower Productivity: Less recovery lowers next-day productivity, and;
Lower Presence: Being mentally elsewhere means you’re less present with family, friends, & yourself.
Switching off deliberately isn’t easy, but it’s essential for performance and presence.
Why Does The Paradox Occur?
Your prefrontal cortex (PFC) handles decision-making, planning, and self-control, but it’s a limited resource. Prolonged mental effort drains it, weakening your ability to regulate emotion and attention (Arnsten, 2009).
Meanwhile, your amygdala (the brain’s alarm system), stays on alert for unfinished tasks or potential threats. When the PFC is tired, it can’t quieten down the amygdala (McEwen & Gianaros, 2011), leaving your brain on high alert even when you’re off the clock.
In simple terms, you’ve arrived home and lifted your foot off the accelerator, but the ‘engine’ keeps revving, when you’d rather it didn’t.
3 Step-plan for the Drive Home
You can’t go from 50 km/h to a full stop the moment you reach your driveway. The same is true for your mind; you need to downshift gradually.
This three-step plan can help, especially for busy professionals after those demanding days - all while on your commute home.
Step 1. Shift Gears
What to do: Before driving home, jot down the big things on your mind.
Why it works: Closes ‘open loops,’ freeing mental bandwidth.
Step 2. Switch Lanes
What to do: Listen to something unrelated to work on the way home: an interesting e-book or podcast that fully absorbs your thoughts.
Why it works: Shifts activity from the rumination brain networks (DMN).
Step 3. Settle In
What to Do: Before stepping out of the car, pause for 30s, take a deep breath, and set a new focus: ‘Now I’m home, my role is ’x’.
Why it works: Small rituals help you transition and support health and recovery.
What Changes When You Do This?
When you learn to downshift, you are more likely to come home calmer, sleep more deeply, and think clearly. The people you care about will likely benefit too, because you can show up fully, not with a mind still ruminating over work.
Over time, this builds a compounding advantage: better work, stronger relationships, and a brain that recovers and is in good shape for the next day.
Why Coaching Helps You Get There
Knowing what to do isn’t the same as doing it consistently. A professional coach helps bridge that gap by:
Asking deeper questions about the underlying cause of your brain remaining ‘on’
Guides you in what to do when your mind keeps creeping back to unwanted thinking about work
Personalises these tools, and more, to your role, routines, and stress triggers
Keeps you accountable so new habits stick.
Coaching transforms aspects like the Recovery Paradox from information into transformation… because performance isn’t just about how well you are switched on, it’s also about how well you recover when switched off.
References
Sonnentag, S. (2018). The Recovery Paradox: Why high job stress can hinder recovery. In Current Directions in Psychological Science, 27(6), 423–429. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721418796785
Arnsten, A.F.T. (2009). Stress signalling pathways that impair prefrontal cortex structure and function. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 10(6), 410–422.
McEwen, B.S., & Gianaros, P.J. (2011). Stress- and allostasis-induced brain plasticity. Annual Review of Medicine, 62, 431–445.