How to Switch Off from Work at Night

By Timothy Spinks

Next week is National Work Life Week in the UK, which runs from 5 to 9 October. It's a yearly nudge from the charity Working Families for employers and staff to think about wellbeing and the balance between work and the rest of life. It got me thinking about one small, stubborn part of that balance: how to switch off from work at night.

The short answer is that switching off is less about willpower and more about giving your evening a clear edge. Close the day on purpose, park what's left on paper, and then give your mind something else to do. When the end of work has a shape to it, the rest of the evening has room to feel like yours.

Why is it so hard to switch off from work at night?

For a lot of us, work doesn't end so much as fade out. The laptop gets shut but the phone is still in your pocket, and one quick look at your inbox after dinner can pull the whole day back into the room. If you work from home, the line is even blurrier, because the place you work is also the place you're meant to rest.

There's also the simple fact that an unfinished task likes to hang around. You can be sitting on the sofa with the telly on and still be quietly drafting tomorrow's email in your head. Nothing is wrong with you if that sounds familiar. It's just what minds do when they haven't been told the day is over.

Does switching off after work really matter for sleep?

Researchers have a name for it: psychological detachment, which means mentally stepping away from work in your time off, not just physically leaving it. Sabine Sonnentag, who has studied this for years, describes it as one of the main ways people recover from the strain of the working day. A 2025 study in the Journal of Happiness Studies, which drew on long-running survey data from workers in Germany, found that people who detached more from work felt less worry and anger and were happier overall, and that the link held across ages, sectors and family set-ups.

The NHS makes a similar point from the sleep side. Its Every Mind Matters guide to sleeping better notes that stress and worry can get in the way of sleep, and suggests writing a to-do list for the next day so your mind has less to hold on to at bedtime. So the evening isn't just the bit before sleep. It's where a good night quietly starts.

A lit candle and an open book resting on a chair in a dim, warm room in the evening

Photo by Aspen Metzger on Unsplash

How to switch off from work at night

What I've come to believe is that the evening needs a door you can close behind you. Not a grand routine, just a few small things that tell your mind the working part of the day has ended. Here are the ones that have helped me most.

1. Write tomorrow down before you stop

Spend five minutes at the end of the day writing down what's unfinished and the first thing you'll do in the morning. It sounds too simple to work, but once it's on paper you no longer have to keep it in your head. The list will still be there tomorrow, and so will you.

2. Give the day a clear last act

Shut the laptop, put it in a drawer or a bag, and turn off work notifications on your phone. If you work from home, a short walk round the block can stand in for the commute you no longer have. The point is to have one small act that means "done", and to do it at roughly the same time each day.

3. Put the phone somewhere else

Most of the late-night pull back into work comes through the phone. Leaving it to charge in another room, or at least out of reach, takes away the easy glance. I wrote more about this in how to stop doomscrolling in bed, because the same habit tends to follow us up the stairs.

4. Mark the start of your evening

Ending work is one half of it. The other half is starting something that belongs to you. For me that's the moment I turn the big light off, put a lamp or a candle on and open a can of Sleep Toniq. It's chamomile, honey, apple cider vinegar and orange, made to promote rest and relaxation, and I made it to be opened at the start of the evening rather than last thing at night. You might have your own version of that moment. What matters is that it happens on purpose.

5. Give your hands and head something else to do

A mind that's been busy all day doesn't go quiet just because you ask it to. It helps to give it somewhere gentle to go instead: a book, some stretching, a bath, a few minutes of slow breathing. If you're not sure where to begin, these breathwork techniques that promote sleep are a calm place to start, and how to wind down before bed puts a few of these in order for a busy night.

6. Let bedtime come a little earlier

Once work has a clear end, you often find the evening stretches out in a nice way, and an earlier night starts to feel possible rather than worthy. If that appeals, I've written about how to get an early night without it feeling like a chore.

What if work still follows you home?

Some evenings it will. A deadline, a hard conversation, a message you wish you hadn't read. On those nights I don't think the answer is to try harder to stop thinking. It's kinder to write the thought down, say to yourself that you'll deal with it in the morning, and go back to whatever small thing you were doing. You won't switch off perfectly every night, and that's fine. The habit is built over weeks, not in one evening.

National Work Life Week is a good reason to try this for five working days and see how your evenings feel by Friday. Nothing fancy, just a list, a closed laptop and a moment that's yours.

If you'd like something to mark that moment, you can try Sleep Toniq here. Open it when the working day is done, and let the rest of the evening start there.