UCLA psychologist Marc Schoen calls getting sick after a stressful stretch ends the “let-down effect.”
Leisure sickness appears during time off
Dutch psychologist Ad Vingerhoets studied a related pattern he called leisure sickness, in which symptoms show up on weekends and vacations. The term puts the focus on when symptoms appear: during time away from usual activity. It gives the pattern a specific setting, with weekends and vacations as the periods in which people recognized symptoms. Schoen’s phrase describes illness after a stressful stretch ends; Vingerhoets’s term describes symptoms tied to leisure.¹
In a 2002 study of nearly one thousand nine hundred people, about three percent recognized the leisure-sickness pattern. Those who recognized it tended to be high achievers with a strong sense of responsibility. They also had real trouble adjusting to not being busy. The traits point to a difficulty with the transition itself: the people who identified this pattern were accustomed to carrying responsibility and staying active, then struggled when that activity stopped.¹
Work can continue through difficult events The author has spent 15 years studying how people change, but took time to recognize the pattern in herself.
Work can continue through difficult events
The author has spent 15 years studying how people change, but took time to recognize the pattern in herself. That gap between studying change and noticing a personal response gives the account a practical point: knowing about a pattern does not necessarily make it immediately visible in one’s own life. The author describes seeing it after periods when she kept working rather than stopping.¹
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Read More →When the author’s oldest brother died suddenly, she kept working. She also worked straight through her divorce and became really sick only after everything was done. In both accounts, the illness followed the period of continued work rather than interrupting it. The author runs her own business, with no paid time off and nobody to cover for her. That constraint is part of her account of why stopping work is difficult.¹
A client the author calls Michelle has been coached by her for two years. Michelle runs a business that becomes demanding toward the end of the year. For years, she spent the first couple of weeks of January sick on the couch. The past January was the first time that pattern did not happen. Her experience gives the timing a clear sequence: a demanding business period, illness during the early weeks of the following month, then a first break in that recurring pattern.¹
Use gradual transitions and steady rhythms
Bilateral stimulation means using a steady left-right rhythm. Examples include walking, tapping the knees one side at a time, or crossing the arms and tapping the shoulders. The rhythm is the same one used in EMDR, or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. The account says this rhythm helps the nervous system settle quickly. The examples make the method concrete: the movement alternates between the two sides rather than stopping at stillness.¹
Psychologists call the calming effect of being near a calm person co-regulation. The account describes it as the body calming down through proximity, without the person having to do anything. That makes the practice different from bilateral stimulation: one involves a steady alternating rhythm, while the other involves being near someone who is calm. Both are described as ways the nervous system can settle, through movement in one case and another person’s calm in the other.¹
Schoen’s advice is not to go from 100 to zero overnight. He says the easiest way to avoid that abrupt shift is to never hit 100 for months at a time. His guidance focuses on the shape of the transition: avoid sustaining maximum intensity for months, then stopping all at once. It sits alongside the examples of steady rhythm and co-regulation as a way to approach the move out of a demanding stretch without treating rest as a sudden switch.¹
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Read More →Examples include walking, tapping the knees one side at a time, or crossing the arms and tapping the shoulders.
Plan Your Recovery as a Work Task
If you are a high achiever who carries heavy responsibility, plan your post-deadline weeks as carefully as the work itself. The 2002 study found about three percent of people recognized leisure sickness, and they tended to be high achievers with a strong sense of responsibility. That profile matches many career-driven roles. If you finish a major project or a demanding season, do not schedule your first days off as a sudden stop. Instead, build in a gradual transition, such as reducing hours or shifting to lighter tasks, before you take full rest.¹
For self-employed people, the risk is sharper because there is no paid time off and nobody to cover for you. The author kept working through her brother's death and her divorce, then got sick only after everything was done. If you run your own business, treat the weeks after a big push as a recovery phase you must design. Use steady left-right rhythms like walking or tapping your knees to help your nervous system settle, or sit near a calm person for co-regulation. These actions cost little and can prevent the illness that follows an abrupt stop.¹
Sources
Written by Career Ahead AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify key facts. Report errors to support@careeraheadonline.com
