The uncomfortable truth about switching off

I wrote this on my last day of work before going offline for a few days. I'd just spilled a full cup of coffee over myself, which is very unlike me, and maybe the clearest sign yet that I was ready for some time off.

Sweden. Nature. Walks, trail runs and swims. Lots of reading and as little screen time as I could manage.

What I want to talk about comes up a lot, and it isn't only about holidays. It's about evenings, weekends, any moment when you technically stop and your system doesn't quite follow.

The first day of a proper break often feels harder than a normal day.

Not worse in a crisis way. Just unsettled. Restless. A bit wrong. Like you've forgotten something important even though you haven't. Like you should be doing something even though you don't have to.

I feel it on the first day of every weekend. Every time I close the laptop and my brain hasn't got the memo yet.

And when that feeling comes up, the temptation is to find a reason to get the laptop out. Check something. Stay slightly activated because stillness feels too uncomfortable.

I know this pattern well enough to explain it clearly to anyone who asks. And I'm still very much figuring it out myself. This one I'm in the middle of.

What helps more than trying to reason myself out of it is understanding what's actually happening, and working with my body rather than trying to talk my mind into something it isn't ready for.

What's actually happening

There's a name for this: parasympathetic rebound.

When you've been running on activation for a long stretch, the back-to-back weeks, the full schedule, the always-on rhythm of ordinary life, your nervous system adapts. It learns to hold a certain level of tension as normal. It calibrates around demand.

And then you stop.

The system, which has been braced and ready for weeks or months, suddenly gets the signal that it doesn't have to be anymore. That sounds like it should feel wonderful straight away.

It doesn't always. Not at first.

Because stopping isn't the same as settling. The activation doesn't disappear the moment you close the laptop or sit down for the evening. It needs somewhere to go.

And it goes through you: as restlessness, as fatigue that feels deeper than expected, as a mind that keeps writing to-do lists. That's completion. Your nervous system finally processing what it has been holding.

This doesn't only happen on holiday. It happens every evening. Every weekend. Any time you make enough space for your system to start processing, and then mistake the processing for something being wrong.

The guilt piece

There's something that makes this worse: the guilt.

The September guilt of taking a break when everyone else is back at their desks. The Tuesday evening guilt of sitting on the sofa when you feel you should still be doing something. The weekend guilt of resting when the week didn't feel complete enough to have earned it. (What does earning rest even mean?)

The sense that rest is earned. That the unsettled feeling is proof you haven't done enough yet.

I feel this too. Even knowing what I know. Even having built something designed to help people regulate.

Knowing doesn't make you immune. It just gives you enough perspective not to fully believe the story.

The guilt isn't telling you that you haven't earned rest. It's telling you that your nervous system has learned to associate stopping with danger. That being busy has become so tied to feeling okay that its absence feels uncomfortable.

That's worth knowing. Not because it makes the guilt disappear, but because it lets you have a little more compassion for yourself while you feel it.

What actually helps

Not forcing your way through the restlessness. Not telling yourself you should be better at this by now.

Moving your body. Walks especially. Moving through nature, with no destination and no goal, helps the system process what it has been holding in a way sitting still can't quite reach.

Cold water if you can. The sharp physical presence of being in something that demands your full attention for a moment.

Reading. Actual books. The kind that need enough focus that the to-do list can't run in the background.

And putting down the things that give your mind a reason to come back online. The first discomfort of resting is exactly when the brain goes looking for a reason to open the laptop. And the laptop always has a very convincing case for why now is a good time.

What happens when you stay with it

If you stay with the discomfort, if you don't immediately fill the restlessness with something that keeps you slightly activated, something shifts.

Sleep gets deeper. You start noticing what you actually want instead of going through the motions. The background to-do list starts to quiet.

In that quieter place things become clearer. Decisions that felt complicated start to feel obvious. Things you've been wanting but couldn't hear under the noise become audible.

This is what I mean by access to yourself. Not a permanent state of calm. Just enough space to hear yourself.

And the thing I keep sitting with is that this clarity shouldn't only be available on day three of a holiday or after a good weekend. It should be available in ordinary weeks. On ordinary Tuesday evenings.

That's the whole reason Baseline exists.

What this means for ordinary life

If it takes two full days of properly stopping for your nervous system to start settling, what does that tell you about what it's carrying the rest of the time?

Not as a judgment. As useful information.

Parasympathetic rebound isn't only a holiday thing. It happens every evening you stop work without closing the stress cycle. Every night you're exhausted but can't sleep because the activation is still running. Every weekend that flies by and somehow doesn't feel restorative.

A two-minute reset won't give you Sweden. But it gives your system enough of the right signal to let some of what's been building up move through. Enough to change the next few hours. Enough that you're not carrying quite so much into the next thing.

Something to try

The next time stopping feels harder than it should, this evening, this weekend or the first day of a break, try this.

Instead of reaching for whatever keeps you slightly activated, notice the discomfort for a moment.

Name it. This is my nervous system processing. This is what completing feels like. This is not wrong.

Then give it something physical. A walk. A breath. Cold water on your face. Something that speaks to the body rather than reasoning with the mind.