How to switch off after work?!

[glovepillow22]

I work from home and after any sort of day of meetings or tricky emails to deal with I CAN NOT SWITCH OFF - the conversations swirl round my mind untill I go to bed, particularly if something is left unfinished or unresolved. If I have a meeting coming up I generally can't relax fully untill it's over with either, and by then something else is in the pipeline.

Any tips how to push work out untill the next morning? Ruining my evenings! I had a great work life balance in my last role.

For some background this is a new role and not only a new sector but a management role which I have been in for a year - maybe that's the problem that I'm still very much learning.

I should probably add I always walk my dogs or hit the gym straight after work to try and de compress but still thoughts keep creeping in!

I think it depends what kind of thoughts are creeping in and how you are talking to yourself. E.g. are you winding yourself up by telling yourself a catastrophic story? "Argh that meeting was terrible, Suzy must think I'm incompetent, it's going to be so awful next time, I'm useless, I'll never be able to look Franklin in the eye again, I don't deserve to have this job, I'll never get over this..." <blood pressure rising all the while as you wind yourself up even more>

Because if you're talking to yourself like that, you need to notice you're doing it, interrupt it, and build a more helpful rational habit. E.g. "I'm disappointed about how the meeting went, but it's done now and I can learn from this for next time, one disappointing meeting doesn't define me, I wonder what we'll see on our walk tonight..." CBT would be useful for learning how to reframe and divert your thinking patterns effectively.

If part of the problem is that you're worried about forgetting to worry about something and therefore getting stuck in a worry loop - stop and write it down. Once you know that there's no risk of forgetting the thing you were worrying about, it is much easier to stop thinking about it obsessively.

Have a designated notebook where you write down any worries that float across your mind so they are kept safe and you don't have to worry about forgetting them. Then set a designated time each day when you will set aside 15 minutes to go through the worry list and decide if you can do anything, and if so what and when, or cross it off the list.

Oh, on a similar line to the worry notebook/diary, it may also help to have a close down ritual at the end of the day where you note down all the unfinished or unresolved stuff to pick up tomorrow.

Again, it sort of parks it for safe keeping so your brain doesn't feel it needs to keep going over and over and over it to protect you from the risk of forgetting about it. It's written down and will be checked in the morning.

Well I'm not doing so well as I've been signed off work with burnout, but I do find it helpful to go and do some exercise at 5pm - I do some weights in my room with Radio 4 in the backround. It's a good demarcation of work and home and means you have to get changed and do something completely different. My mistake was going back to my emails after dinner..... (tip: don't do that).

Meditation and yoga, meditation will 100% help you.