‘Freizeitstress’: Why leaders struggle to switch off—and how to truly rest this summer

You have finally closed the laptop. Your out-of-office reply is on, your diary is empty, and the summer break you have been looking forward to has begun. So why can’t you relax? Instead of relief, you feel restless. You check your phone. You begin planning activities. Perhaps you tell yourself that you are only monitoring an important project, yet within minutes you are back inside the world you intended to leave behind. The German term Freizeitstress describes the stress created by free time.…