There are many ways to create mental and physical separation from your work, including transition rituals, after-work routines, and mindfulness exercises.

It can be easy to mentally carry your work into your evenings, but it’s important to create distance between your work and home life.

This can be especially tricky if you work from home, but creating rituals and routines that relieve stress and create distance from work are necessary for both your mental and physical health.

Read on to get tips on how to leave work stress at work and enjoy your life outside of your job.

This article is Day 11 of Healthline’s 14-day Stress Reset Challenge. Follow along to discover simple ways to reduce stress, build healthier habits, and feel more balanced.

Missed a day? Catch up with Day 10: Social Wellness, or continue on to Day 12: Signs and Symptoms of Too Much Stress.

According to OSHA, 83% of U.S. workers report work-related stress, and 54% say it affects their home life.

The transition between work and home, especially if you work from home, is important so your brain can start to wind down and make the switch.

For people who commute to work, that time in the car, on the train or bus, or maybe walking or cycling, is a great transition ritual. It’s a pattern and routine your brain knows, and it means you are (hopefully) separating yourself from work for the remainder of the day.

If you work from home, you might try creating a “commute” by taking a walk or bike ride, doing a 15-minute yoga session, closing the door to your home office (if you have one), or changing your clothing.

Other transition rituals could include:

  • tidying for 10 minutes
  • taking a shower
  • making a type of tea you only ever drink after work
  • lighting a scented candle that you only use after work
  • changing your hair from how you had it during work
  • listening to a guided meditation for stress release
  • changing the lighting

Saying a quick transition mantra may also help. Something like “shutdown complete,” “switching off for the day,” or “I gave it 100, now it’s time to recharge.”

Here’s what works for some Healthline employees who work from home:

“I love reading a few magazine articles or a chapter of a book immediately after work. Previously, I’d jump straight from the work laptop to my personal laptop, which meant I was looking at screens for upwards of 12 or 13 hours per day. I didn’t realise just how beneficial it was to have an hour or so away from the internet earlier in the evening.”

— Amy McLean, Editor

Quotes represent individual opinions. All content is strictly informational and should not be considered medical advice.

“Going for a long walk. Since I work from home, leaving the house for a while helps me get some mental separation from my work environment.”

— Jill Campbell, Editor

“I second a workout or some outdoor time. I also love diving into a hobby that feels more creative than administrative like music, LEGO, or crafts.”

— Siobhan Deremer, Director of Content Integrity

Other go-tos for editors on our team include:

  • working out
  • pilates or yoga
  • reading
  • walking their dog
  • watching TV or relaxing on the couch
  • chatting with their kids
  • yardwork or gardening
  • picking up an analog activity
  • creative writing

Having an after-work playlist can also help your brain transition from work to your life. Bonus: listening to music can reduce cortisol (the stress hormone) in the body.

Be mindful about where you spend your attention (a limited currency) and where you use your energy.

Before you know it, it’s easy to have spent over an hour on your phone. While sometimes a bit of mindless scrolling can be nice, it can lead to feeling unfulfilled and even depressed if that becomes the routine day after day.

Try to outline and follow a general routine after work. After your transition ritual, maybe this looks like spending an hour on your favorite hobby, cooking with family, watching an episode of your current show, prepping the next day’s breakfast, and then doing a skin care routine before bed.

Routines help manage stress, enhance well-being, reduce the psychological burden of decision‐making (which you’ve likely done a lot of at work already!), and can help achieve goals.

If you can, try to incorporate both physical activity and something related to the arts in your after-work hours at least a few times a week. Even better if there’s a social component to it.

In a study of over 11,000 U.S. adults, in-person social engagement was the most common health-enhancing behavior, followed by reading and physical activity. Happiness was highest when engaging in receptive arts, such as attending a performance, going to a museum, watching dance, or listening to music.

Work stress can build into burnout if you don’t establish boundaries. You might be tempted to check “just one more email,” but making boundaries for yourself and others is an important part of your routine after work.

  • Try to unplug for a while and don’t sign back into your work accounts. Let your coworkers know you don’t check messages after 5 p.m., or after your sign-off time.
  • If a work thought pops up, acknowledge it, then mentally place it in the “tomorrow folder.” You may have to put it back in the tomorrow folder a few times if the thought is persistent, but with practice, it will get easier to do this.
  • Keep your work computer, laptop, or any other work materials in a separate room from where you sleep. This creates a physical separation.

Use what you have

Work from a one-room studio apartment? Even just covering your work laptop with something like a tray, placemat, or overturned basket at the end of the day can help create mental separation.

If you still have trouble “closing the work tabs” in your mind by the time you’re getting ready for bed, then take a few minutes to do a brain dump. Write down the main points of what’s on your mind, or things you still need to do the next day, and leave them on the page until tomorrow.

In a study at Baylor University, people who listed what they didn’t get to helped people get to sleep 9 to 10 minutes faster than those who wrote a list of what they did accomplish.

Meditation, deep breathing exercises, and mindfulness all help to calm stress and anxiety before bed.

Try to avoid all electronic devices for at least an hour before bed, and do what soothes you to help your body and mind prepare for sleep. Perhaps that’s taking a warm shower or bath, setting an analog alarm clock, and reading a few pages of a physical book.

Many of us have the ability to stay connected to work 24/7, but we must create boundaries to make sure that work doesn’t leak into the rest of our lives. Finding transition rituals, after-work routines, and bedtime routines that work for you can help reserve room for rest, recalibration, and joy.

If you try these tips for destressing and creating distance from work and still find it impossible to create those boundaries, you may want to consider speaking with a mental health professional so they can help you build the tools you specifically need to live your best life.