Why Trying to Relax Is So Damn Stressful
Relaxation-induced anxiety is a real psychological diagnosis. Here’s how to tell if you have it.
My weeknights often contain very little chill: On nights when I go straight home from work, I typically spend the hours before bed doing something utterly responsible. I clean, or I work on freelance projects, or I catch up on all the emails I ignored during the day.
Technically, this productivity is by choice, but it doesn’t really feel like a choice to me: It feels like what I’m supposed to do. Would I rather be watching Grey’s Anatomy while eating a leisurely dinner on my couch? Yes. Does the thought of actually doing that fill me with dread? Also yes. For so many reasons — guilt, worry that I’ll be seen as lazy, fear that I’m wasting precious free time on something dumb — sitting at home and relaxing stresses me out.
People who know me well have said (usually with love, occasionally with exasperation) that this is a very “me” problem. But I’m far from the only one to have a hard time letting go. “Many of my patients find relaxing to be very stressful,” says Harris Stratyner, a New York-based psychologist who specializes in helping people overcome unhealthy behaviors. The struggle to relax is so widespread, in fact, that psychologists have given it a name…
