You Leave Your Shoes at the Door but Bring Work Home: An Expert Explains Why Small Rituals on the Way In Help You Switch Off

In the Balkans, taking your shoes off at the door is a house rule we know from our grandmothers: the slippers wait by the door, the shoes stay in the hallway. Psychologists are now reading that small gesture differently - as a sign that the body wants to close the work shift.

Pilar Conde, technical director and head of clinical operations at the Origen centre, explains that taking off your shoes when you get home is a habit linked to emotional well-being. She calls it a "rite of passage": a small act that helps you disconnect from the demands of the day.

Shoes aren't the only ritual of this kind. Changing clothes works in a similar way, as does showering, turning on the TV, leaving your keys and phone in one particular spot, washing your face and hands, sitting down on the sofa or making yourself something to eat and drink.

The problem is that shoes come off your feet far more easily than work comes out of your head. According to Conde, switching off is made harder by the phone and work email, unfinished tasks, your own expectations, beliefs about what it means to be a good professional, and the fear of not being up to the job. All of that can keep a person in a state of constant anxiety.

A good switch-off, she says, can be recognised by attention returning to your personal and social life, good-quality sleep, not checking email compulsively, and work that has boundaries.

The recommendations are simple, if not always easy: set times for digital work, rituals like a shower or a hobby, devices out of sight, accepting that something will always be left unfinished, and realising that being a good professional doesn't mean always being available.

How many people take their shoes off at the door and then answer messages from the boss until midnight? We have the slippers. The ritual, it seems, we're still learning.