Always on, never done? How the mind recovers after a stressful workday?

Abstract

Many workers experience their jobs as effortful or even stressful, which can result in strain. Although recovery from work would be an adaptive strategy to prevent the adverse effects of work-related strain, many workers face problems finding enough time to rest and to mentally disconnect from work during nonwork time. What goes on in workers’ minds after a stressful workday? What is it about their jobs that makes them think about their work? This special issue aims to bridge the gap between research on recovery processes mainly examined in Occupational Health Psychology, and research on work stress and working hours, often investigated in the field of Human Resource Management. We first summarize conceptual and theoretical streams from both fields of research. In the following, we discuss the contributions of the five special issue papers and conclude with key messages and directions for further research.

Difficulties detaching psychologically from work among German teachers: prevalence, risk factors and health outcomes within a cross-sectional and national representative employee survey

“…Furthermore, the prevalence rate among primary and secondary teachers is compared to other occupations as well as other types of teachers as reference groups, by using data from a large-scale national and representative survey of German employees. This goes beyond previous studies e.g., [21,22] and allows conclusions whether primary and secondary teachers might especially be vulnerable for difficulties to psychologically detach from work. Third, we aim to identify specific risk factors of detachment difficulties in German teachers.…”

“…So far, metaanalytic findings with data from various occupations support the assumptions of the SDM. Psychological detachment from work negatively relates to work-related stressors and positively relates to indicators of wellbeing and physical and mental health [17][18][19][20], see also [21] for a summary). However, a recent review found that only a few studies investigated psychological detachment among teachers and called for more fine-grained study approaches in this profession [22].…”

“…The forth contribution of our study is that we investigate how difficulties detaching psychologically from work relate to indicators of teachers' health impairment. This goes beyond existing literature by using specific rather than general well-being indicators in the context of psychological detachment [21]. More specifically, we consider indicators of mental health (i.e.…”

Work During Non-Work Time of Public Employees

“…Similarly, in the BIBB/BAuA survey (2018), 22% of respondents confirmed that working outside working time makes it harder for them to recover from work. Respondents explained that work during non-work times affects their allocation of time for private activities, leading to imbalances between work and private life (Wendsche et al, 2021).…”

“…Based on an analysis of literature Wendsche et al, 2021;Lutz et al, 2020;Gadeyne et al, 2018;Eurofound, 2016), we have examined whether work during non-work times is becoming more common among employees, including public employees.…”