Always on: why entrepreneurs can't rest

Sunday afternoon, the children at the playground, the phone in his pocket. Nobody has called. Even so, he takes it out every few minutes — not because he’s expecting anything, but because not checking feels dangerous. When his partner asks whether he’s all right, he says: “Yes, I’m resting.” And in that moment he believes it’s true.

This scene could describe many founders, managing directors and self-employed business owners. The body is at the playground, the head is in Monday’s meeting. A holiday means working from a different location. An evening means “just this one email”. And when the moment finally comes when there really is nothing to do, instead of relief there is restlessness — as if you had forgotten something.

People who have built something of their own often say that rest simply doesn’t come naturally to them. As if it were a personality trait, like the colour of their eyes. In this article I’ll try to show that it isn’t. Rest is a skill that entrepreneurial life systematically wears down — and one that can, slowly, be learned again.

Switching off is not the same as free time

German psychologist Sabine Sonnentag has spent more than two decades researching how people recover from work. One of her key findings is that free time on its own isn’t enough. What matters is what goes on in your head during it. The concept she placed at the centre is called psychological detachment: not only being physically away from work, but also not thinking about it.

Together with Charlotte Fritz, in 2007 she described four experiences through which people recover their strength in their free time:

• detachment — your thoughts aren’t on work;
• relaxation — body and mind settle;
• mastery — you do something that challenges you and teaches you, but has nothing to do with work;
• control — you decide for yourself what to do with your time.

In the research that followed, it was detachment that was most consistently linked to less exhaustion, better mood and better sleep. And detachment is exactly what entrepreneurs find hardest.

Why a holiday doesn’t help for long

Many entrepreneurs count on their holiday: I’ll slog for three months, then go to the seaside for two weeks and recharge. Research doesn’t support this idea. Jana Kühnel and Sabine Sonnentag followed teachers before and after their holidays and found that the positive effects on wellbeing had disappeared within about a month of returning. So a holiday does help, but the effect fades quickly if you go back to the same rhythm.

What has a more lasting effect is everyday rest — evenings, weekends, short breaks during work. Yet that is exactly what entrepreneurs often sacrifice first, because it seems least important. A holiday is worth planning. A free evening feels like a luxury.

There’s another trap. When someone lives for a long time without daily detachment, the body stays on standby. We call this chronic stress: a stress response that doesn’t switch off when the danger has passed — because in your head the danger never really passes. Jos Brosschot and colleagues pointed out that the body is burdened not only by stressful events themselves, but also by the time we spend thinking about them in advance or afterwards. In their view, repetitive thoughts about problems prolong the stress response far beyond the moment when anything actually happened.

Why entrepreneurs can’t rest

An employee has at least some external limits: working hours, a manager who doesn’t call at the weekend, a colleague who covers for them. In Slovenia, employment law has recently also begun to mention employees’ right to disconnect explicitly. An entrepreneur has none of these limits — or has to set them alone, which is far harder. A few reasons why detachment so often doesn’t happen:

• The company is part of your identity. When the business is your work, your reputation and your project, thinking about it isn’t “work” — it’s thinking about yourself.
• Responsibility for others. Employees’ salaries, promises to clients, investors’ money. Rest feels like neglecting the people who trusted you. I’ve written about how that weight lives in the body in Founder anxiety: when the company is your child and your debt.
• The reward for being available. In the early years, a quick reply often really did decide a deal. The brain learned that an answer at eleven at night could be worth a contract — and it keeps repeating the lesson for years after it has stopped being true.
• The phone. In a diary study, Daantje Derks and Arnold Bakker found that frequent use of a smartphone for work in the evening was linked to more work spilling over into home life, with recovery playing an important role. I’ve described separately when phone and screen addiction tips over from habit into a problem.

The guilt that comes with every break

For many founders, the hardest part of resting isn’t a lack of time, but the feeling that appears when they take some. You sit on the sofa and a voice pipes up in your head: “The competition is working right now.” “The team needs you.” “Who do you think you are, going for a walk in the middle of the week?”

This voice looks like guilt, but often it isn’t. Real guilt relates to a specific act that harmed someone, and it can be put right. Guilt about resting has no addressee. Nobody has been harmed. That is why it often turns out to be shame: the feeling that you are worth something only when you are producing. I’ve written about the difference in Guilt and shame are not the same — and the difference matters.

In relational family therapy, in which I am training, we often see that this voice wasn’t born in the company. It can frequently be traced back to a family in which work was the measure of worth — where a child was praised for being good, and where rest had to be earned first. Sometimes to a parent who worked without a break because they couldn’t afford to do otherwise. Messages like these aren’t written down as rules, but as a feeling in the body. And when you’re a grown-up entrepreneur with a full diary, that feeling tells you exactly what it told you when you were ten.

Guilt and rest thus get tangled in a loop that keeps itself going. You don’t rest because resting frightens you. Because you don’t rest, you’re tired. Because you’re tired, you work more slowly. Because you work more slowly, you “deserve” rest even less.

When the thoughts won’t stop

Even when an entrepreneur puts the phone down, the mind often doesn’t. Thoughts circle around the same questions: will the client sign, will the money arrive in time, what did the investor mean by that sentence. In psychology we call this rumination — chewing things over in a way that feels like problem-solving, but in reality only prolongs the stress.

Rumination is often closely linked to perfectionism. If you believe you have to foresee every possible problem in advance, the thoughts can’t stop, because there’s always one more possibility you haven’t checked. I’ve written separately about how perfectionism and overthinking are two sides of the same fear. At night, the same pattern often shows up as waking at three, when the mind switches on before the body is properly awake.

Thoughts about work aren’t a problem in themselves. An entrepreneur who gets a good idea in the shower doesn’t need therapy. The trouble starts when the thoughts are no longer a choice — when you can’t decide not to think about something, and the thinking leads nowhere but goes round in circles.

How it sounds in conversation

This is how the start of a conversation with someone just back from holiday might sound (a composite, not a real person):

“Last week I was at the seaside for four days. The first time in two years.”
“And how was it?”
“Good. I think. Every morning I just went through my email so there wouldn’t be any surprises.”
“How long did going through it take?”
A smile. “Until lunch.”
“And what would have happened if you hadn’t?”
A long silence. “I don’t know. I think I’d have felt like I’d let someone down.”
“Who?”

That last question is the one that opens up the work. Because it isn’t about the email. It’s about whom this person still feels answerable to in his head while he’s sitting on the beach — and whether that “someone” really is a client, or perhaps someone much older.

Exercise: one evening of switching off

This exercise isn’t a recipe for the perfect weekend. It’s a trial of a single evening that you can do today.

1. Set an end time. Choose a specific time when the working day is over — for example 7 pm. Not “when I’ve finished”, but a time on the clock.
2. Close the day on paper. Five minutes before that time, write down three things that are still open and, for each one, when you will tackle it. The brain lets go more easily of a task that has a place of its own.
3. Take your phone into another room. Don’t just silence it — move it. If you need to be reachable in an emergency, tell one person how they can call you and switch everything else off.
4. Do something that occupies your hands or your body. Cooking, a run, playing with your child, fixing a bike. Relaxation and mastery come more easily when the body is busy, and thoughts then have less room to circle.
5. Watch the guilt, don’t obey it. When “I should” pipes up, write down exactly what it says and whose voice it reminds you of. Don’t argue with it. Just note it down. Read what you wrote the next day.

If the first evening is hard, that’s to be expected. A body that has spent years on standby often feels anxiety, not relief, the first time it switches off. That isn’t a sign that rest isn’t for you. It’s a sign that you’re only just learning it. You’ll find a short explanation of what rest is and what it isn’t in the knowledge base under rest.

Where this doesn’t apply

I wouldn’t want this article to sound as though every intense period is a sign of a problem. In entrepreneurship there are times when you really do have to give everything: a launch, a crisis, the first big deal. Short-term strain followed by recovery isn’t dangerous — the body is made for it. The problem starts when the exception becomes the rule, and “just this month” lasts three years.

Nor is everyone who can’t rest simply a workaholic with guilt from childhood. Restlessness that doesn’t settle even during rest, insomnia that lasts for weeks, loss of pleasure in things that used to bring you joy, a pounding heart or constant exhaustion can be signs of an anxiety disorder, depression or a physical illness. Then an exercise with an end time isn’t enough — see your GP, who can judge whether you need to see a psychiatrist or another specialist. And if you recognise the signs I describe in Burnout is not laziness: signs your nervous system is asking for a break, take them seriously.

If you ever have thoughts that it would be better if you weren’t here, call the Klic v duševni stiski helpline on 01 520 99 00 in Slovenia (every day from 7 pm to 7 am) or the Samarijan helpline on 116 123 in Slovenia (24 hours a day), and in an emergency, 112.

And finally: sometimes the problem isn’t only in you, but in how the company is set up. If everything grinds to a halt without your constant involvement, that isn’t only a psychological question but an organisational one too. I don’t advise on that. But we can explore why it’s so hard for you to hand over control — a question no organisational chart can solve.

What changes once you learn to rest

People who learn to switch off often say two things surprised them. First, that the company didn’t collapse. Second, that they’re sharper on Mondays — that they see solutions they couldn’t see on Friday evening. This fits the research: Sonnentag and colleagues found that detachment during free time helped people stay engaged in their work even during periods of high demands. So detachment isn’t the opposite of commitment. It’s what makes commitment possible.

Things change at home, too. Your partner and children don’t only need more of your time; above all they need your attention when you’re with them. An evening when you’re truly present means more to them than a weekend when you’re half there. I write about what a child sees when a parent is always “on” in Entrepreneurs and children: when you’re not at home.

Rest isn’t a reward for work done. It’s what allows you to keep doing the work for years — and to remain, alongside it, the person the people close to you know.

What to remember

• Free time on its own isn’t enough — what matters is psychological detachment, when your thoughts are off work.
• The effect of a holiday fades within about a month; everyday evenings and weekends help more lastingly.
• Guilt about resting often isn’t guilt but shame — the feeling that you’re worth something only when you’re producing.
• The voice that forbids you to rest is often older than the company.
• Restlessness, insomnia and exhaustion that don’t go away are a reason to see a doctor, not to try another exercise.