Workplace Wellbeing: Put rest first to be at your best

Busyness has come to be seen as a badge of honour, but when it’s relentless to the point where you don’t take all your annual leave, it becomes counterproductive

Meg Dunphy, head of engagement and policy at CIPD Ireland

Almost two in five Irish workers didn’t take their full holiday leave last year. The 2025 Annual Leave Report, a survey of almost 2,000 workers, also found that 24% left five or more days of paid leave unused — effectively an entire week.

Meg Dunphy, head of engagement and policy at CIPD Ireland, is one of these employees. The 43-year-old from Kilkenny will end the year with three days’ leave remaining.

“I’m going to roll them over into next year and have to use them up in the first quarter,” she says.

It’s not the first time she has arrived at the end of the year with unused leave. She has a generous allowance of 28 days’ holidays and tends to use most of it when her children are off school during the summer, and in February and October. But there are other times of year when her workload makes it difficult to step away.

“Our business cycle is really busy in the month or two before Christmas, so it’s hard to take time off then,” she says. “We run a calendar of events and conferences throughout the year and have to fit leave around those too.”

If balancing work demands with annual leave is one reason why people can end up with unused days, Dunphy suggests presenteeism as another.

She says, “It trickles down from the top. If leaders don’t take leave, the expectation then becomes that those lower down the ladder won’t take it either. But people should be asked when, not if, they are taking leave. It shouldn’t be optional.”

Eithne Hunt, occupational therapist and University College Cork lecturer.

Occupational therapist and University College Cork lecturer Eithne Hunt agrees that heavy workloads can influence people’s decision not to take time off.

“If you work in a shop, someone will cover your shift while you’re on leave or the shop will close,” she says. “But in many other sectors, people’s work piles up while they are away. They have to work hard to clear their desk before they leave and often return to bulging email inboxes. Their never-ending to-do list convinces them it’s not worth taking time off work.”

She adds that a competitive workplace can be a factor as well.

“It can make people think time off will cost them in terms of career progression and they may not want to pay that price,” she says. “Or they may take time off but not log off entirely. The boundaries of work are so fluid now that some can work from beside a pool in Lanzarote, while on holidays.”

Lloyd Horgan, a psychotherapist and director of Evolve Mental Health.

Living to work

Lloyd Horgan, a psychotherapist and director of Evolve Mental Health in Limerick, identifies four reasons why people forego their holidays.

The first is financial pressure. “The rising cost of living, housing, childcare, and other bills can make time off feel like a luxury rather than a right,” he says.

The second is our work-centric culture.

“Our identity, status, and self-worth are increasingly tied to our professional output,” says Horgan. “People feel they must always be available, always advancing and always excelling, and that leaves little mental space to prioritise rest.”

The third is what he calls “faulty cognitive patterns and behavioural loops”, or the likes of the internalised thought patterns relating to overwork or competition with colleagues referred to by Hunt.

“Thinking that we will fall being or be less valued if we take time off can trigger behaviours like under-booking leave, rationalising not using it or feeling guilty for using it,” says Horgan. “Over time, this becomes a self-reinforcing loop. The more people work, the more they feel compelled to keep working and the less they rest.”

The fourth is a lack of understanding of the need for rest. Horgan says that “in an age of hustle culture, we have lost sight of its value”.

The 2024 Healthy Ireland Survey reported that 12% of the population has a probable mental health problem. Horgan adds, “That’s likely to escalate without rest. Not taking breaks can also limit social contact and lead to loneliness. People can lose their sense of meaning when their life is just work, and their identity shrinks to a job title.

“Studies show that chronic stress without adequate rest can increase our risk of cardiovascular disease and other health conditions.”

To highlight the significant benefits of taking time off work, Dunphy cites a 2024 study of 3,024 American doctors which shows that the fewer holidays people take, the higher their burnout rates.

“Employees and employers need to be aware of this,” she says. “To prevent overwhelm and burnout, improve staff retention and reduce sick leave, everyone should take their holidays.”

Recharging the batteries

Time off work can even help our professional performance. 

A Japanese study found that holidays boosted creativity, while research published by the American International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans in 2022 showed that employees who took their full leave were more productive than those who didn’t.

“Rested people come back more engaged and effective,” says Horgan.

Regardless of whether you’ve yet to take up all your annual leave or have no leave left, self-care is essential, says Hunt. “If we don’t have leave left, then we should prioritise rest. Because rest shouldn’t only happen on holidays. It’s how we spend the other 40-something weeks of the year that matters more. They should be balanced between work, play, rest, and sleep. We need to find a rhythm that works for us and that has enough flexibility to allow us to respond to unforeseen circumstances with enough reserves in the tank to deal with all of the demands in our lives, not just work.”

A good place to start is letting go of the idea that you will complete your to-do list. “In his book Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, Oliver Burkeman writes that we’ll never get to the end of it and that we need to make peace with that,” she says.

“It also helps to realise that “we’re expected to self-regulate in a dysregulated world that doesn’t contain us in the way it used to. Checking emails from the sun lounger in Lanzarote is an example of that. There was a time when mail arrived once a day. Now it’s non-stop, and busyness has come to be seen as a badge of honour. We need to move away from that and consciously decide how we want to use our time and attention, two of the most precious resources we have”.

She refers to the Rest Test, the largest-ever study on rest, conducted by the BBC in 2016. It found that reading and listening to music were the activities people found most restful. “What works for you may be different,” she says. “It may take trial and error to find what helps you rest.”

A tactic she has adopted in her own life is making the most of little pockets of free time in her day: “I would often check emails when walking from one building to another on campus or look at my phone when waiting in line at a cafe or supermarket checkout. Now I take a breather and give my brain a mini moment of rest when walking or waiting.”

Horgan has other suggestions. They include spending time in nature, connecting with family, and friends, practising mindfulness and meditation, engaging in hobbies, and volunteering.

“All have been linked with lowering stress hormones and deepening self-awareness, gratitude and self-worth,” he says.

“Far from being a sign of laziness, rest is absolutely essential to health and taking time out and using it intentionally in any one of these ways may be one of the most effective self-care interventions of all.”

People can lose their sense of meaning when their life is just work, and their identity shrinks to a job title