How to Switch Off After Work: The End-of-Day Ritual I Use
The laptop is shut and dinner is done. You are on the sofa, and your head is still walking through tomorrow: the 9 a.m. call and the reply you owe a client. Your brain needs a clear signal that the day is over, and five minutes of slow breathing, a look at tomorrow's plan and a few lines on paper can be that signal.
The full routine is below, taken from my solo episode on the Talking Nutrition podcast, episode 207. One plain line before we start: this is education and does not replace your doctor.
Why Are You Exhausted but Still Wired at Night?
On the show I described it the way a lot of my clients do:
You might feel exhausted once you get home, but you're still kind of wired and tired, your brain just won't shut off at night.
Then you are in bed, going over a project or something else that stressed you out. I know that room. About a year and a half before I recorded this episode, there were nights I lay awake until 2 a.m. My bedtime was fine, usually 10 and sometimes 11, and sleep still would not come. These days I sleep a steady seven and a half hours or more, and I got there working with my coach on sleep and everything around it.
One possible driver is that work stress does not clock out when you do. In some people the stress hormones stay up long after the laptop closes, and the body keeps acting as if the day is still running. I also see it in clients who say yes to too many things. Exhaustion comes first, burnout can follow. I hit burnout once for sure and probably twice, and came close a few more times, so I listen to my body's symptoms earlier now.
If trouble falling asleep carries on for weeks, bring it to your doctor. A ritual is a habit, and a doctor can look at the rest. For the sleep side of the picture, my post on sleep deprivation goes deeper.
Why Does Your Nervous System Need a "Day Is Done" Signal?
Work ends on the calendar. The body has no matching button. As I put it on the show, "we never have an off switch for that stress, for the load, the exhaustion."
A signal gives your nervous system something to read. Slow breathing and the same steps in the same order can tell the body it is allowed to move from alert towards rest and digest, the parasympathetic side. I said "hopefully" on the episode when I described the effect, and I stand by that word. It works through repetition.
The picture I use is a shop at closing time. "I want you to think about this as closing the cash register at the end of the day." You count up, everything checks out, and tomorrow starts fresh. A line from the Stoic philosopher Seneca about balancing life's books each day stuck with me, and it is why my journaling moved from mornings only to mornings and evenings.
The reason I care is the people at home. I want my girlfriend to get the version of me who is present, and you may want the same for your kids or your partner. Here is how I framed it:
There's no point in me sitting here having dinner while I'm thinking about projects. No, that's for tomorrow morning.
When the evening tends to end at the fridge because your head will not settle, my post on late-night snacking covers that side.
If you would like to hear me talk it through, the full episode is right here.
Why Is Coaching More Than Food and Workouts?
Clients are sometimes surprised by how little of our time goes to food. "Most of my coaching calls have nothing to do with food." I am not a therapist and I say so. I am a real person who can sit with you while you work through sleep and stress.
This episode came out of one of those calls. A client told me she could not sleep, felt snappy with her kids and was deep in busy season. That same week I taught this ritual to three or four clients.
I think about work in seasons. A professional athlete has an in-season, a recovery base and a pre-season, and nobody expects them to sprint every month of the year. Busy season is real, and a pull-back follows it. If someone feels so overwhelmed they cannot think about food, talking about eating more fruit gets us nowhere. Self-development is the soil, and nutrition grows on top of it. My post on managing stress sits right on that soil.
How Do You Switch Off After Work? The Step-by-Step End-of-Day Ritual
This is the exact order I follow at the end of every workday. I keep the order the same each day, because the sequence is what becomes the cue.
- Slow breathing for five minutes. I set a five-minute timer, close my eyes and let ambient sounds play. Box breathing is my start, and other methods are fine, I really do not mind which. This is the trigger that says my end-of-day ritual has begun.
- Check tomorrow's calendar. Which calls do I have, and what needs prepping? Mine might be a client catch-up or recording a podcast.
- Review the task list. I look at what got done today and what moves to tomorrow. Smaller leftovers either go to my assistant or wait for me.
- Write tomorrow's top three tasks. Below them go five smaller tasks that I would like to finish, and the world will not end if they slide. Then I place the three in my calendar as time blocks.
- Open the journal and read this morning's entry. It is a quick read-through, because we forget a lot by evening.
- Write one daily win. It can be small. After that, one thing to improve: what did I say I would do, and did I do it? If not, why not?
- Rate your effort. One to five or one to ten, your call. Then write why you gave that number. A low score gets a reason, and so does a high one, which tells you what to keep doing.
I learned the three-plus-five task list in a mentorship I did around 2021 or 2022. Their version had one number-one task, then three important ones, then five small ones. I cut the top tier, because I often have three things that matter equally, and I still put those three in order. Adjust yours the same way.
The reason behind all of it: "I want to wake up with clarity. I want to know what to do." Tomorrow morning I sit down after my morning routine and I know my first time block.
Do the journaling on paper. "Don't use your phone for this", as I said on the show. Grab a physical journal and a pen and talk to yourself on the page. If something good happened, even something small, it goes down, and if I snapped at someone, that goes down as well.
How Do You Make an End-of-Day Routine Your Own?
You do not need all seven steps on day one. Begin with the breathing. This is how I said it:
When you leave work, before you start your car, just sit there. No phone, no distractions, no sounds.
Five minutes is the start, and ten is better if you have them. On the bus, do it on the bus. Walking or cycling home, keep your eyes open and breathe slowly as you go, and if you want more reasons to move, my post on everyday movement has them. If you are rushing to pick up the kids, breathe in the car until you arrive, with the music and podcasts off.
I also put my phone on flight mode when I finish. That is a second trigger for me. Social media can wait until tomorrow, and I do not need to be scrolling while I am at the table.
The plan for tomorrow does not have to be about work. It might be that tomorrow is meal prep day, so you check you have what you need and write the shopping on your list.
And I am not perfect at this, mind you. Nobody is. Doing it most workdays beats waiting for a perfect version.
How Long Does It Take Before It Feels Natural?
You may do this today and notice nothing. You may do it for a full week and still notice nothing. The figure I quoted on the show, from habit research, is an average of about 66 days, inside a range of 18 to 258. How long yours takes, I honestly do not know. What matters is how often you do it, so count days instead of watching for a feeling.
The hope is that you feel more present after work, fall asleep a bit better and wake up with more clarity. I say hope because I cannot promise any of it.
What Is the One Action to Take Today?
When you finish work today, give yourself five minutes. Slow breathing, no phone. Then take a pen and paper and write the day of the week and "end of day ritual", with a tick beside it. Tomorrow, do it again and put a second tick under the first.
The episode goes into more than this post could fit.
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Written by Johan Vesters, functional health and nutrition coach (FNMS, HMCC L1, MMU L1, PN1, CFL1, NCI L1) and founder of Odyssey Coaching Systems.