Leisure stress can make you ill: How to protect yourself

Unfortunately, leisure stress is no longer an unknown phenomenon for many people. Here you can find out why it damages our well-being so much and how you can avoid stress in your free time.

A full working week and finally the long-awaited weekend. But one look at the appointment calendar and you realize that you are hardly idle on Saturdays and Sundays either: two appointments, driving the children to friends or to a football game, finally calling the parents again and then doing the laundry and cleaning the kitchen.

You could maybe cancel some things, but you don’t want to let anyone down on such short notice. And then suddenly it’s Sunday evening, the leisure stress from the weekend is over and tomorrow the new working week begins. You haven’t recovered in the meantime. And that’s a problem.

What is leisure stress?

The psychologist Dr. Annalisa Stefanelli told Sanitas magazine that leisure time stress is no different from other forms of stress. Any form of stress is imbalanced. Then external expectations or your own goals cannot be reconciled with your individual possibilities to implement these goals or to cope with them mentally. We therefore exceed our capacities, feel overwhelmed, rushed and dissatisfied.

Stress is not necessarily always a negative thing. According to the Sanitas magazine, in psychology there is what is known as eustress. This is a kind of positive stress. Because we overcome a stressful challenge, but in the end we are rewarded with a feeling of fulfillment. In the case of so-called distress, on the other hand, this feeling does not occur. Challenges and a packed schedule tend to trigger threatening feelings.

If we perceive negative stress over a longer period of time, our body reacts to it. According to the University Hospital Zurich, long-term stress promotes numerous diseases. These include mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety disorders or burn-out. Cardiovascular diseases (such as a heart attack or high blood pressure) and gastrointestinal problems (such as irritable bowel syndrome) can also be the result of too much stress.

What we perceive as stress varies from person to person. Maybe you have a busy schedule every weekend, but don’t see it as a burden or even more as an enrichment. Others are overburdened with just a few appointments or duties and need significantly more time for themselves.

What stress means can also differ in a person depending on the phase of life. Therefore, it does not make sense to compare your own perception of stress with that of others. After all, only you know what you need right now and how you can best recover from a busy work week, social conflicts or other challenges.

Why do we experience leisure stress?

The Leisure Monitor has been recording the leisure time behavior of Germans since 1982. The results of the survey include the responses of 3,000 people between 1982 and August 2022. According to the evaluations, the main trigger for leisure stress is the feeling of wasting time. Many people report feeling stressed in their free time, for example when they are stuck in traffic, waiting in line, or having to spend time with people they don’t like.

Since the pandemic, the researchers have also seen a significant increase in stress in the area of ​​life planning. The reason for this is, for example, the apparent incompatibility of career and family. However, the biggest triggers for leisure time stress are still:

• not having enough time for yourself and others,
• having spent too much money
• a constant flood of advertising in everyday life
• and noise pollution from third parties.

According to the evaluations, general leisure-time stress has decreased during the corona pandemic. After all, there were fewer offers and opportunities to meet during this period. However, due to the relaxation and subsequent lifting of many corona rules, our leisure opportunities are now almost the same as those we had before the pandemic. It remains to be seen whether this will also increase leisure time stress in the future.

But why is leisure time stress such a present topic these days? Ulrich Reinhardt, the scientific director behind the Freizeit-Monitor, gives a clear reason to the Süddeutsche Zeitung: the social media.

Social media and FOMO

According to Reinhardt, social media has made us forget how to enjoy our free time. Because on Instagram, TikTok and other platforms we are constantly confronted with how other people enjoy their lives. That puts a certain amount of pressure on us – and the fear of missing out. A fixed term has now even been established for the latter: FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out)

According to Reinhardt, this fear of missing out is the result of a modern optimization mania. We see the apparently perfect life of our fellow human beings and want to have a life that is at least as perfect. We then begin to optimize everything in life, including our free time. As a result, we might not just lie on the couch for a few hours reading a book on Sundays, but instead make appointments all the time – just so that we have something exciting to tell or can post corresponding pictures on Instagram.

So we often don’t go to an event because we really want to, but because we’re afraid of not going. In this way, we no longer enjoy our leisure activities, but make them our own obligations.

Leisure time stress: How to avoid it

Social media, the associated constant networking and growing social pressure are the main causes of leisure time stress. You can use this knowledge to consciously avoid stress in your free time and really use your free time for relaxation:

• Digital Detox: For a relaxing weekend, it is best to leave your smartphone switched off in the drawer or only check at certain intervals to see if you have received messages or calls. It’s best to avoid social media altogether.
• Doing nothing: You’ve had a packed schedule all week? Then you can simply block a day or at least a few hours at the weekend in which you can relax and take time for self-care.
• Cancellations: Your friends are all going to that one party, birthday or concert, but you would just like to stay at home? Then it is advisable to give in to your need for rest. To do this, however, you must learn to say “no”.
• Hobbies: You have time to pursue your hobbies at the weekend, on days off or on vacation. Ideally, this creates so-called “flow” moments in which you forget space and time and your next to-do lists for a while. This can happen, for example, when cooking, walking, exercising, making music or painting.
• Mindfulness: By regularly integrating meditation, breathing exercises and relaxation techniques into your everyday life, you can consciously lower your stress level. It may also give you better access to your needs. We are often so stressed in everyday life that we no longer know exactly what we actually want. However, if you sit down for a moment, close your eyes and take a deep breath, you might realize what you need most right now: a sociable game night or just warm tea, a couch and an exciting book.

Read more on Techzle.com:

• Time management: tips and methods for less stress
• Nature against stress: You should spend so much time in the countryside
• Why spending too much time on the phone can shorten life