Are you bringing home more than just your briefcase at the end of a long workday? For many, the hidden toll of workplace stress doesn't stay behind at the office—it seeps into our most intimate relationships, silently undermining connection, emotional safety, and even physical closeness. It's a problem so common and subtle that many don’t realize work is affecting their love life until the damage is already done.

In this episode, listeners are invited to uncover the overlooked ways that work stress spills over into the home, affecting both partners’ emotional well-being and the overall health of their relationship. The conversation explores how chronic pressure at work can disrupt intimacy, communication, and even one’s sex drive, while providing practical strategies and ritual ideas to help couples reclaim their connection. Through actionable tips on communication, intentional transitions, and building emotional resilience, this episode offers a roadmap for transforming work-induced disconnect into renewed connection and support.

Dr. Guy Winch is an internationally renowned psychologist and bestselling author who advocates for integrating the science of emotional health into our daily lives. His 3 TED Talks have garnered over 35 million views, and his science-based self-help books have been translated into 30 languages: Emotional First Aid, How to Fix a Broken Heart, and The Squeaky Wheel. His newest book is Mind Over Grind: How to Break Free When Work Hijacks Your Life (Simon & Schuster).

Episode Highlights05:52 How work stress and burnout manifest in relationships.

09:40 The emotional ripple effect: How one partner’s stress impacts the other.

12:13 Negative cycles: Perceptions, attachment, and relational downward spirals.

14:55 Naming stress and practical communication tools.

18:39 Micro-expressions, tone, and the subtle cues we send.

20:32 Regression under stress and the impact on coping skills.

24:22 The power of ritual: Transitioning from work life to home life.

27:59 Engaging the senses: Tools and traditions for mindset shifts.

31:16 Intentionality, agency, and the value of compartmentalization.

33:50 Boundaries around work talk and rekindling couple connection.

38:45 Empathy, understanding bids for connection, and reframing relationship challenges.

Your Checklist of Actions to Take Establish a Daily Transition Ritual: Create a routine that signals the shift from work to home life, such as listening to calming music, changing clothes, or lighting a specific candle to help your brain shift gears. * Name Your Emotional State: Verbally acknowledge your mood or stress level to your partner when you arrive home, reducing uncertainty and fostering understanding. * Communicate Your Needs: Clearly state if you need time to decompress before interacting, setting expectations, and providing your partner with context. * Use Venting and Problem-Solving Time: Divide post-work conversations into venting and solution-focused segments, aiming to wrap up with action steps or reframing to avoid lingering stress. * Compartmentalize Work Worries: Write down concerns and physically or psychologically “put them away,” or schedule “worry time” later, allowing you to be more present at home. * Limit Work Talk Boundaries: Set aside a defined period to talk about your day with your partner, then intentionally shift focus to non-work connection and relaxation. * Foster Quick Emotional Connection: Engage in brief but meaningful actions such as holding hands, reminiscing over old photos, or talking about a shared show to nurture emotional intimacy even when tired. * Practice Mutual Empathy:* Intentionally try to imagine your partner’s day and emotional needs, using empathy as a tool to bridge gaps and prevent misinterpretations caused by stress or depletion.

MentionedMind Over Grind (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)

How to Fix a Broken Heart (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)

Emotional First Aid (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)

The Squeaky Wheel (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)

Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication (free relationship guide)

Connect with Dr. Guy WinchWebsite: guywinch.com

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Website: drjessicahiggins.com

Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com

If you have a topic you would like to be discussed, please contact us by clicking on the “Ask Dr. Jessica Higgins” button here.

Thank you so much for your interest in improving your relationship.

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*With Amazon Affiliate Links, I may earn a few cents from Amazon if you purchase the book from this link.

Episode Transcript

Doctor Guy Winch, thank you for joining us.

Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be with you.

Yes. And you are a psychologist, a renowned author, and you've done several TED talks. And we're going to be talking about work stress, even burnout, and how it impacts intimate relationships. So do you want to say anything just to orient us to this topic, and I guess how this became of interest for you?

Sure. It became of interest to me just over the years in my practice. I would literally see people tell me that they are losing their feelings for their partner, for their spouse, and really nothing had changed. And what they're telling me about their spouse is that their spouse continues to be lovely. So. But what was happening to them in their lives? They were going through a big issue at work. They were getting really stressed out or burnt out. And I started to notice the damage that our work lives were doing to our home lives and our relationships specifically, and the collateral damage that the partners were paying. I was sensitized to that years ago. And then when I started doing research for this new book, I started coming across study after study that was showing that, yeah, this is a real thing.

And it's something that I think we're so unaware of or we don't think of as much. So I really wanted to highlight it, and I'm glad we got a chance to talk about it.

Excellent. Wonderful. And just to further define a little bit, when you are talking about work stress and then also possibly burnout, do you see those as different?

Yeah, work stress is just the general grind that we sometimes have, or a lot of us, a lot of the time, have at work. Just the general pressures, the demands of the workplace, the overworking, or the expectation that we're always, you know, the always-on workplace where we get emails at all hours, or just the big projects that keep coming at us. It can be about the looming cuts, the threat of AI, the things that just keep us preoccupied, worried, stressed at work. When that accumulates to a certain degree, we can develop burnout, but that's already when we kind of fell off that cliff. And now we're actually really experiencing a severe kind of reaction.

Just to be clear about what

“Burnout is, you feel very exhausted all of the time in a fundamental way that a good weekend of sleep is not going to fix”

And you feel very cynical about what you do. It's lost its meaning, it's lost its appeal. It's not interesting or engaging. It doesn't feel important anymore. You don't feel you're doing a good job at it anymore. It really makes you numb to everything. You're just trying to get through the day. You're just trying to get through the day all the time, and you just detach from it all. And that can lead to a lot of physical ailments and other things.

Yes. Thank you for acknowledging the significance and severity of burnout and how it accumulates and reaches a certain point where it impacts functioning in a significant way. Okay. All right. “So when we look at intimate relationships and within the relational dynamics, what do you see as how this can manifest in work stress?”

So I just want to say this one thing first.

“It is unreasonable to think that we would be in a workplace in which we are in fight or flight”

in a very stressed environment, sometimes a hostile environment, sometimes a harassing one, sometimes a politically complicated one where everyone's out to get everyone, or a very competitive one where the people who reach sales targets get promoted and those who don't, like. “There are all kinds of environments like that. It's unreasonable to think we would spend 8, 9, 10 hours a day there, get home, and suddenly be able to shed all of that at the door and be there and be happy, go-lucky and be with our families and, like, yay, home. Like, that's not reasonable. It's just not how we function, you know? And so we brought it home.”

We bring it home in those obvious ways where we come in, and we're preoccupied, and we're troubled, and we're irritable, and we're upset and all of that. And as much as we try, and most people do try to kind of shield their family from it and keep it away, when someone around you is very preoccupied, worried, stressed, irritable, whatever, you pick up on it. And it makes it very hard for you.

“You can't be in a good mood if your spouse is sitting in the room in a dark cloud.”

You just can't. And again, most people really do try. So I don't want to make it sound like you're failing your family. It's very difficult. You actually have to be very mindful and very intentional not to let it bleed in those kinds of ways. But it does well.

And I'm kind of hearing you say, even if it's being intentionally managed and there is some way in which to protect or buffer that relational space, it is impacting the nervous system of the person that's in that work environment, and that can't be overridden. Like, I remember, I think a friend sent me. I want to say it was a podcast. I can't remember the guest. She was a physician. I'll try to look for and post it on the show notes. But she was talking about the people who are closest to her, even in the workspace. If I think it was an assistant and they were doing brown bag training, and she was.

This physician was doing a bit of a talk, and she was talking about the impact of cortisol, a stress hormone, and how it can affect, even if the person who isn't the highly stressed one, the people around them physiologically can be impacted. And the joke was that the assistant was like, oh, you're the reason why I have extra weight around my belly. Yeah, the physician was breaking it down around the impact. And I think one thing I'll add here is that I think in the individual kind of Western mindset, we think we live in this kind of our individual body, and we're not always so aware of how, even though very subtle or even the nervous system state, will impact those closest to us. What do you want to say?

Absolutely. And look, some studies show that

“If one member of a couple is severely stressed and pressured at work, the other person, their partner at home, can start to develop symptoms of burnout”

That's how significant that transfer is. And some of it is just as you said, the infectiousness just. And stress is a mood, and tension is a mood. And all of those things, those stress and the people around us in physical proximity, both at work, be it the assistant or whoever, and certainly at home more so, but also in unconscious ways. Some studies show, and I talk about them in the book, that there are studies that show that when we are very stressed out at work, we will unconsciously undermine our partner within the home. We're not even aware that we're doing it.

We might not intend to, but we're not just vicariously spreading the tension and the stress. We are actively undermining them, making their life more difficult within the home. We can do that by withdrawing from tasks and just not living up to our duties at home or just being too tired or by. Here's a silly example of how that happens. You get home, you're really, really tired, you know, and your spouse is there, and they're trying to get dinner ready and do this. And the kids are coming and saying, oh, can I have a cookie? To them. And they're like, no, I don't like cookies; we're having dinner soon. And then they run to you like, oh, can I have a cookie? And you're like. And you're just too checked out, you're too tired, like, yeah, sure, whatever, you know.

And now you just made life more difficult for the other person. Examples like that, and another one that I tend to quote, because this happens to a lot of people, is that when you come home from a very difficult day at work and you're preoccupied with that really annoying thing or upsetting thing or stressful thing that happened in the office and your seven year old runs up to, you know, mommy's home, and you're not in that headspace, it can feel like an intrusion. And you will unconsciously stiffen up, and the kid will feel it, your spouse will feel it, and you're not even aware you're doing it. But it's not surprising. You are. You're in a different headspace. You're still in battleground mode, not in home mode.

So there are all these different ways in which it really affects our relationships with very dramatic outcomes.

Yes. And I will say, often those perceived cues by the loved ones, as you said, either the child or the spouse that's looking for the welcoming embrace and the kind of connection in that will feel that stiffening may perceive it as a form of disconnection, maybe even rejection, or however they might perceive that.

Absolutely.

That then can start to impact the way in which they're responding to each other, creating a loop or some type of negative cycle.

That is absolutely not just true, but very important. And I'm so glad you pointed it out because you and I know, and most people need to understand,

“Relationships are dynamic”

They're systems in which things ricochet back and forth. So in research, the story starts with this happens, then that happens, period. That's what we're looking at. But in real life, it goes beyond those two moves because, yes, they interpret that as a disconnection, distance, rejection. They have a reaction to that, which then causes a reaction from the other person, which bounces back and forth. It tips things into a certain kind of cycle. And so in real life, those things ricochet back and forth a lot. And so it's not just that small moment, it's all the moments that rippled from it that happened thereafter, which can.

Really start to impact the environment of the relationship or shape the sense of the bond. Okay, so the way I'm organizing this in my mind, guys, and from an attachment perspective, when we look at relationships, attachment systems impact the thinking and the expectations. So you're saying whether or not we're conscious of it or unconscious of it, that we may start to perceive our partner differently. I imagine this could be for both partners if we're just imagining in couplehood: one has a little bit more acute stress or chronic stress, given, and the other one maybe not so stressed. But both parties could also be stressed. But what I'm saying is it can impact the perception of how we are experiencing the onslaught of stress during the day.

And then that informs, and that likely will continue to perpetuate in maybe not-so-great ways. I think Terry Real calls it the core negative interpretation or something. Or the Gottman language would say the sentiment override. The negative sentiment overrides these downward spirals. So it's the thinking, it's also the physiology. Like you're saying, do we feel relaxed in one another's state? Are we able to regulate? And also just the muscle and then the emotional. It impacts all things.

Yes, it impacts all things, as you said. And again, like when somebody comes in, and they're kind of, you know, radiating that kind of energy, the other person has to try and understand what's going on. And that distancing is hurtful. And again, it accumulates over time. “There are even studies that show, for example, that when one person is chronically stressed at work, their partner, not just them, but their partner, will lose their sex drive.” Now, that makes a lot of sense, right? Because if you have a partner that's coming home and they're constantly stressed and irritable, so much so that you could roast a marshmallow on them, like, that's not attractive. No one's being like, oh, I want to sleep with that. Like that's going to have an impact. But yeah. And people are not. And again, it's not.

I don't want to put blame anywhere because it's the circumstance. “What I advocate is that if you know that's happening, if you know that it might be, if you know that it's likely to, then you need to; then it is on you to take specific steps to try and mitigate as much as possible.” Because the same research that points to the disconnects also highlights where couples don't have it, why they don't have it, and what the mitigating factors are that you can employ to protect your relationships in that way.

Yes, I really want to focus and turn towards what you're about to share with us. It also seems worth noting, Guy, as you state this, I imagine some people are thinking, yes, right. Like this is understandable, but there's something very powerful in naming it, and just even naming it and bringing awareness to it can help us start to do something about it, which you're going to be recommending and offering some tips here. And I will say, in the relational dynamic, if I'm on the receiving end and I'm seeing my husband in stress and he's not naming it, or there's nothing named in our couple system, I notice my response is to feel a little apprehension, feel a little bit tight, kind of on guard. I'm not as relaxed. But if it's named, like, today has been really hard.

“I just need a little time to decompress. I would love to connect with you, but there's some organization around it. It really helps lessen the intensity and also the uncertainty. Would you like to speak to that?”

“Yes. I think that is absolutely critical, the naming of it. There is a difference between somebody coming home and saying, I've had a day. I'm in such a bad mood. I'm sorry, but I'm really in a bad mood. I need to figure out how to kind of get my head on straight, but please forgive me. Right now, I'm just naming that as opposed to leaving it up to the other person to say, like, you seem irritable. I'm not irritable. Like, you know, there's a big difference.”

“Yes.”

“That's the thing. So, and naming it, first of all, you're letting the other person know that you're in a bad state of mind and you are aware of that.”

“You're owning it, you're acknowledging it.”

It already helps them discount anything that comes from you thereafter. That would be a little sharp, a little overstated, a little something because. Okay, but he did explain. She did tell me, you know, so it starts with, there again, you and I know. I'm just going to emphasize the thing. I'm sure your listeners have heard this a thousand times. It just bears repeating.

“It starts and ends with communication”

That is just a critical thing. You have to communicate. You have to communicate with the other person. Let them know where you're at. I advocate, by the way, if you need, like, can I, you know, something happened, I would love 15 minutes to just talk it through. It will help me put it aside. If I can stroke it through for 15 minutes, for 20 minutes, would that be okay with you?

They might have had a bad day. It might be like, oh, really? Because I'm not. But if possible, that's very useful. Here's something critical within that. That time has to be divided into two parts. The first part is to tell the story, vent, bemoan, you know, like, throw the pity party. Whatever you need to do, it cannot be the end of it there. You will not be able to shed it if that's where you ended there, nor is it good for you. That last part has to be problem-solving action items. What can I do? How do I need to reframe this? It has to be something that gives a little bit of a bow on the incident. So your brain is not thinking like this is a live and open issue. How do you expect me to put this aside?

It's still very bad having some action items, even saying, like, maybe tomorrow I can think about how I might address it with them or something to make it clear that this is not just about the venting. This is about figuring out what to do about it or how to think about it that will allow you to put it aside. If you can ask for that and then do that. And if they can't do it with you, take the 15 minutes to do it yourself. You'll be in a much better place to truly put it aside than if you just try to squelch it.

Yes, thank you for acknowledging that and for. I love that you're giving a continuum of how this can be implemented, that perhaps the one that's not ready to move into action yet, there can still be. Okay, my step is to think about this later tonight or tomorrow, or here are some real validating things that I have an issue with that I want to look at more concretely. Or how do I address something that gives some movement, organization, and progress so that it can be constructive? I think that's so helpful because some people are more apt to like, yes, I want to problem solve, and I want to look at this, but some are not ready to do that. So I love that you're giving some options around that.

“And communication, it's so important, not only just the words, but the signals that we're sending when we look at how we're responding to one another. A lot is being conveyed in these micro facial expressions, the tone of voice, things that we're not even intending to perhaps communicate but are being communicated on an aside. I remember years and years ago, I was in my head a bit, and I was thinking about tasks. It was like lunchtime, and my husband was like, oh, you're being. You're not being very nice. And I was like taken aback because I wasn't in a bad mood. I felt very neutral. But I received it, and I contemplated it. And later I was like asking him, was it that I wasn't being as friendly or warm or nice? And he was like, yes. And I was like, okay.

So even the difference between me being more affectionate and pleasant and being more neutral felt to him like.”

“But his language was actually quite accurate. Right. He wasn't saying you were being unpleasant, he wasn't saying you were being annoying, he just said you weren't being very nice. He was almost saying you're usually very nice, and now you're not very nice.”

That's a great catch. Language was actually I interpreted it as, like, you're being rude. And I'm like, I'm not being rude. So thank you. And then the last thing before we go to steps, I also want to acknowledge that most humans, if not all humans, tend to regress in stress. So if we layer on previous trauma or difficult hardships, I'm thinking of a client who was in a very hostile, very abusive dynamic in his work life that was somewhat family-related, but he was literally getting terrorized and bullied. And unfortunately, Dave was spilling out in the relationship, and he was harshly saying things, and he's done a lot of work, and they've done a lot of work, and they're way beyond that. But we can regress and be doing and saying things that we are not proud of.

And not to excuse it, but to look at how significant this can impact us.

Yeah, I actually want to explain it, and rather than excuse it, here's why that happens. We all have coping mechanisms. The function of our coping mechanisms is like the function of an airbag in a car. But the anticipated collision, it inflates and shields us, cushions us from the impact. That's what our coping mechanisms do. Now that impact can come from external stresses or from internal ones like our own thoughts, emotions, and stresses that we are self-generating. But that's what our coping mechanisms do. When we are tired, when we have been functioning all day because we've been in a very iffy environment, we deflate. That airbag deflates. It doesn't cushion as well. We are not as well defended; we are not as well cushioned.

We then experience everything a little bit more raw, a little bit more hurtful, a little bit more distressing, a little bit more painful. Because our airbags, our coping mechanisms, are not fully deflated, and they can really deflate more and more. And so when somebody's coming home like that, when somebody's in that state of mind, they just don't have that cushioning. Small irritations will really get through to them. And now somebody else looking at the outsiders would be like, really? That's what you overreacted to. But they weren't overreacting in the sense that they thought that was a big offense. They experienced it as very offensive because the usual cushioning that they would have to keep it in perspective that we all walk around with was not functional.

And then perhaps you layer in a negative couple dynamic that is disconnecting, that it can be difficult to tolerate or be able to manage.

And if people want to know what it feels like to have no coping mechanisms, babies. Babies don't. They haven't developed them yet, so everything makes them cry. They just go on crying because they just. They have no coping. When they get a little older, they start to develop a little self-soothing, a little bit more coping. And we develop them as we grow. But when we are extremely tired or extremely stressed, we lose it too. And

“Small little things can make us cry. It's not a sign that we're weak. It's a sign that we are exhausted.”

And depleted, to your point, and not resourced. And the vulnerability. And I would add. And then let's switch to what we can do about it, that we tend to hope, whether or not unconsciously or consciously, that the intimate couple space or the home life is a haven. So we came. We might be bringing all this stuff with us and maybe, like you said, sabotaging. But also, there's this expectation or hope that I'll be met with a warm embrace. It will be soothing, but we're maybe not so explicitly asking for it, or I get this can be very complicated, but I think that layer of hope that we can let our guard down in the home space.

I would hope so. I mean, home should be a sanctuary.

Yeah.

Ideally.

Often isn't, especially when we're bringing all this stuff with us too. Okay, so tell us what. Where would you like to start about how to mitigate some of this territory?

Okay, so there are all kinds of things we can do, but let's start with a basic one. I believe that you should have a ritual that you enact every day that helps you transition from your work life to your home life, that helps you shift your mindset. And why I think it should be a ritual and a daily one is because by doing that, you can train your brain to shift gears A little bit more smoothly and more quickly because you're really shifting your mindset. You really are going from the modern-day battlefield, which happens to be the workplace, into the behind-the-lines, the home front. And those are very different mindsets. Like soldiers leave the battle and come home. It takes them a while to adjust because that's a big shift.

But a transition ritual would be one that you enact every day, and it would include as many of the senses as possible. Start with sound.

“The sound is very evocative. Music is very evocative. So have the playlist or the song that puts you in the mood that you want to be in when you get home. That helps calm you down”

that helps remind you of family, that's the wedding song, whatever. The thing that helps you really shift gears. Music is very evocative for us. So, a certain playlist that you can make of music that helps you shift. Another thing that we are very susceptible to and maybe less aware of than we are is tactile. It's clothing. There is a reason leisure wear is called leisure wear. The fit and the feel of it should make us relaxed.

And we all have different associations with clothing. So if you're coming home, the first thing you should do when you get home after listening to your music is change into clothes that you associate with home, with safety, with relaxation, with casual, with family, with dad, with mom, with whatever the thing is. And that's very evocative. Now some people say to me, I work from home in jeans and a T-shirt. I'm like, terrific. Have a set of jeans and T-shirts that you wear and associate with work. And have a different set of jeans and T-shirts that you associate with home. Your brain will tell the difference. Your brain is not into fashion as much as it is into association. And again, some things make.

For example, in experiments, when people were asked to wear a white lab coat because it was cold in the room and they were given a white lab coat, they became much more accurate at certain tasks because they associated wearing a white lab coat with scientists, who tend to be more accurate. So it literally changed how they approached unconsciously, how they approached us. So clothes use clothing to signal to your brain the mood that you want to be in. We're also sensitive to olfactory things. So this is where you want to use aromatherapy, certain candles, and where you want to open a window. The environment around you. Can you sit in a park for a few minutes? Can you be around plants? Can you be in a place where nature is a soothing thing for most? I live in New York City.

Trust me, nature is a soothing thing. Not a lot of it to benefit from, but anyway. But those kinds of things shift the lighting at home. If you're working from home, make the environment look different. Shut the laptop, put a doily on it, put a plant on it, make it look like a. Not like a work environment. All those things will help you. And one thing to add in there, especially for couples, is family. People watch, have some videos of the good old family trips, family times with you. And you have to be in the video, not when you took it, so that you can see yourself laughing with your family, relaxing with your family. Like, just a minute of a reel will help you. Like it'll put you back, reengage that then, and put you in that mindset. Now it's about the family.

Now it's about my partner. Now you know, whatever the thing is. So those are intentional: this ritual that you need to do at the end of the day, it will help you and shift mindsets, and it will help your brain do it with more ease so that you have a better chance of actually coming home with the right mindset.

Thank you. I know some of this; for some, listening might feel like it doesn't really have that big of an impact. However, what we're talking about is the body, the physiology, the brain. And these are real signals and cues that help assist in this transition. I've actually heard many people who maybe work from home now that used to have a commute, and some of them miss the commute and really transition from the work mode to the home relational mode. And I appreciate just the tactile. There are times when just the analogy of like shedding the day or like even my husband will be like, I feel like you have work all over you, change your clothes. But I'm also thinking of, do you remember Mr. Rogers?

Do you remember? Of course. That's the first thing he did, right? He put on the sweater. Yes.

He had this whole ritual, and it was something. And it wasn't all that different from clothing.

But it was a transitional cause of what it symbolizes. And by the way, just to add to what I said earlier, if you need to have that conversation about it, let me have the conversation either with myself or with my partner so I can put aside the real looming thing from the workday that's troubling me. Do that first, then do the transition after. Once again, if there's something that's weighing on you that you need to talk about, don't do the transition and then dip back into work.

Yeah, I like that. Do one before the other, and we'll just add that we are animals, really. Like, so that's when we give these social animals, and we can give these cues and help the physiology shift and the symbols; we typically will respond, as you said, going out in the fresh air. Like, if I haven't been outside all day, I feel more human being outside in the elements, even if we're in a city, like looking at a tree or feeling the sun on our face or just the breeze and the fresh air. So I thank you for really speaking into this.

And to anyone who thinks, like, I don't know if this is going to really be impactful enough for me, I don't either. That's why you should try. It will be, or it won't be. But you might. Because a lot of this is unconscious impact. You don't know until you try it, though. I don't think it will behoove you to try.

Yes, and I recall in grad school I was taking this elective, and it had to do with creative expression. And she created a transitional space by creating this makeshift kind of doorway that we all walked through. But it was too intentional. I'm so much of this intention, right? That's what we are really focused on and setting our intention around so that we can enter into a different mode. Like you said. Like, sometimes we expect it to happen automatically, but if we intentionally access the parts of us, like you're saying, through looking at a reel, or the things that remind us and help us engage. But to intentionally, like, what is it that I'm wanting to create in my evening, this evening, or the energy of what we're creating as a family or as a couple, it can be really powerful.

But it was amazing. Just walking through this makeshift thing actually helped us enter into more of a creative space because we're all in our heads, we're academically doing all dissertations, and she's helping us enter into this playful space of creativity. So it was remarkable.

And I'm so glad you mentioned intention because it's so important.

“Intentionality is very important”

When you are creating intention, when you are being intentional, you are disengaging the autopilot. You are actually taking control of your coping mechanisms. You're taking control of your operating system psychologically and directing it in the way that you want it to go, rather than just letting it go where it goes. So intentionality is very important, and intention is very Important. But secondly, it's also very empowering because when that works, and you feel like I don't just have to be at the mercy of my mood, of the ripple effects of what happened to me in a passive way in the workplace, I can enact my own sense of agency, and I can be more empowered to shift.

“I don't have to be like the victim in that or the recipient or the passive person in the story. I can be the active person in the story”

But you can't be unless there's an intention behind the actions you take, because that's what signals agency. That's what makes you feel empowered, is that you had an intention and saw it through. So intentionality is very important.

Thank you for speaking more about that. And with what you're describing, it's reminding me that there are folks who will try to write some of their worries down and then put them in a compartment. And I'm wondering, transitioning from work mode to relationship mode, do you ever help people have a visual or a practice that can compartmentalize, like, put it in its bubble or its box? And again, that might be a metaphor or a symbol, but that can help maybe with, okay, I am shifting, and I'm intentionally leaving this here, and I'm now going to a different space. Is that useful in your work?

It's very useful. There are three boxes that you can put things in. You can use the literal box and, like, write things down in a certain journal, then put it in a drawer. Okay, now it's in the drawer. And when it's in the drawer, I don't have to deal with it. When I take out the journal, I'll deal with it. That thing that's troubling me. So I'll write it down, and I'll put it in the literal box of the drawer. That is, there's a psychological one to come as a means to do that, to decide that. I am putting it aside.

Yeah.

And I am not going to deal with this right now. I want to. Again, that's much easier to do when you then have the intentionality to be present in whatever else that you're doing. Psychology abhors a vacuum, and like space, it abhors a vacuum. And therefore, like you, it is not about, like, not thinking about something. It's about thinking about focusing on what you're actually focused on. But here's a third box, which, in the research, is surprisingly effective. That little box in your calendar is very effective for studies; if you put 7:30 tomorrow morning in your calendar. I'm waking up a little early, and I'm spending half an hour worrying about this thing tomorrow. So I don't have to worry about it now. So I can let it go now. If you do that and put it in that little box.

But you have to have the intentionality to do it. If you're just doing it as a brain hack, it doesn't work. It only works if you truly intend to wake up early and take care of it. But when you do, our brain takes calendars. We didn't go with them. Our brain loves them. And so. And so if you put it there and you have the intention, the studies show that you can let worries go much more easily by knowing that. And your brain knows. Okay, you'll get to it. I don't have to keep bombarding you with reminders right now.

Yes, when we are going to attend to it, we're prioritizing it. We begin to trust that it will get addressed and dealt with. And we can choose to do that at the time when we decide.

Yes.

Okay. So one of the things that's rattling. I know we don't have a ton of time here, guy, but one of the things I'm thinking about. For couples who want to know how your day was? Or engage in sharing that this could actually reopen the box. But for partners who want to share in more of that intimacy of knowing each other throughout that day, what do you recommend around how to navigate that?

Territory has boundaries around it.

Okay.

Like, say, like, hey, let's spend half an hour. Let's do it over dinner. Tell me about your day. We'll process things, we'll talk about things, but let's have an end. That still leaves us time to relax or recharge or do or connect in ways that are not about work. We don't want to work. Because look, when you're thinking about work, you know, work. So, like, let's do that so we connect, we know what's going on. But let's leave time to just be us. To just watch your favorite TV show, go for a walk, talk about whatever. Not work. It's actually fine to do. Some couples work together, and they want to debrief at the end of the day. No, do it. No, it's fine. Do it.

“Leave time for other aspects of life. Otherwise, work will just start taking over everything”

Right. And into the theme of taking over everything. The thing I'm also thinking is that some people have lost touch with what is the thing they want to do. I want to connect. But I'm not sure. The relaxation of watching a show could be more of the decompressing that feels restorative, but it doesn't quite hit the mark around connecting. And so people can be a little bit at a loss around. Okay, I'm overstimulated, I'm exhausted. Yet I do want to connect. How do you help people access connections when they may be so overwhelmed and need to decompress, like in the evening? It's hard to fit everything in. Do you. Again, does this come back to intention?

Or what where it's actual practice? I mean, connection is one of them. And look, emotional connection. The connection we talked about. Right. Just to be clear, it's an emotional connection.

Physical, sexual. Yeah.

Emotional. Has to proceed as in the studies about partners who lose their sex drive.

Yeah.

The couples who really mitigated that are those who had a good, strong, and maintained their emotional connection.

“So the emotional connection is the buffer that will help you, and it should precede the physical.”

Yes.

Connection. It's not that difficult. You don't need an hour to connect emotionally. Just truly things like taking a walk together. But holding hands, even if you're not talking about much, can be a way to do it. If you're watching a show together, rather than you being on one laptop, you can be on the other tablet or sit together, and it's not about the show. Then talk about the show for 10 minutes. What you liked shows what you thought about it. Like that's connected. The watching itself is not sufficiently connected. But talking about it and finding the common strands and the common thoughts, that's what connects. So invest that amount of time. You really want a quick fix. And I'm going to use an old term, forgive me.

Photo albums.

Yes.

The physical ones that we used to have. Fine. You can do it online too. You can do the virtual. But like, let's go through those vacation photos and just remind ourselves of how much fun we had. That's it. And laugh together about that kind of thing. If you want a really quick kind of fix to do it, and you're too depleted to start. Let's not have such a deep conversation now because I can't. Fine. Let's just look at something. Let's just watch something. Let's just review something that we know felt connective and so. But again, that is very intentional and mutual in its intentionality. It's a couple who are both, like, we're both tired. We're both this. But let's connect. Let's make sure we feel one another, and we're not just transactional and operational and just getting things done. Done.

Thank you so much. I mean, this is where people can feel a lot of benefit in reminiscing about early times or, like you said, a vacation or special moments. And it can access and engage those emotional states that can open us to more of that connection and the love that's shared. We could go on and on. And I know that you have so much to offer. I want to say I really appreciate it. In your book, you talked about helping a client who had gotten pretty far down the road of seeing her partner in a negative view and feeling like she appreciated who he was, but felt a lot of disconnection. And you helped through the practice of empathy. Do you want to describe that a little bit? And then we can tell people how they can get your book.

That was a young person. That was a Gen Z person. And the thing about the empathy was she kept seeing his bids for connection as neediness because she was so depleted, and she just didn't have. Have it in her. So it felt like it was a request that's not honoring where she's at. Except she didn't explain where she's at. He just wanted to connect with his girlfriend when she came home. And then the dynamics we discussed unfolded. Right? So she rebuffs the efforts, he feels rebuffed, and he gets upset. Now he seems more needy of her. And then over time, the cycle happens. Where he used to be supportive, and now he's just needy. And it was like, no use. Used to be available, and now you're just depleted. That's the real kind of thing.

But we did an empathy exercise in which you really try to imagine, visualize what your partner's day was like, what they went through, what they need, how they're feeling. And you just try to connect with their needs and their feelings just so that their behavior then doesn't seem foreign or doesn't seem unreasonable or inconsiderate. It makes perfect sense in the context of what their day is, what their need is. He was just like, excited to see you. And again, it was a bid. And again, it's like once you start to see that,

“It doesn't shift things immediately, but it starts to shift your mindset; it starts to shift your perspective that you can then work with to reconnect”

Yeah. The vulnerability. And I think, as you said, when one can also access what they need, their deeper layers. Right. It's easy to want to judge or criticize. Oh, they're needy, or they're this. But like, oh, I need time to transition. I'm not ready, and it feels a bit too soon or intrusive even. And I need a little buffer. Like, I'm sure her partner could appreciate that. Transitional need. And then working together around like, oh, you love me, and you want to connect. Like, I appreciate that. Like, they can both be true.

Yeah. When they're communicating about it, they can get through that.

Okay, I love it. All right, so excuse me, for people who want to get to know you a little bit more, what are you offering? Where would you like to direct people?

People can go to my website. It's guywinch.com G-U-Y W-I-N-C-H.com, and they will have links to my books. This is my fourth, and there are three others. My three TED Talks:How to practice emotional first aid(Book: Emotional First Aid);How to practice emotional hygiene;How to fix a broken heart (Book: How to Fix a Broken Heart). Substack newsletter and other kinds of resources. Social media stuff, twitter.com/guywinch; facebook.com/guywinchauthor; instagram.com/guywinch/; linkedin.com/in/guywinch/; youtube.com/@GuyWinch, all of that.

Yes. I'll put the link to your social media as well as your website. And then would you like to name your most recent book?

My most recent book, the one we're touching on today, is called Mind Over Grind: How to Break Free When Work Hijacks Your Life in parentheses, which I'm adding right now, and your relationships, because that's part of your life, and that is available wherever books are sold, wherever you get your books, in Amazon, you should be able to get it. It's an audiobook, ebook, and hardcover.

And I will say, a lot of the personal growth books I find are not as interesting in the sense of story. And I know that you're known for being a great storyteller, and I will just say I found it very engaging, very accessible, and interesting. To continue to read. So for people listening who are like, oh, another book. But I find it quite pleasant and interesting to read. So thank you for all the work you've offered the world. I'll make sure to put the link to your book as well as your website and your social media. And thank you for your time here today.

Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.

The post ERP 539: When Work Follows You Home: Protecting Connection Before Stress Becomes Disconnection — An Interview with Dr. Guy Winch appeared first on Jessica Higgins.