How to Help Staff Recharge During Breaks
Updated: Jul 28
It is that time of year again, when teachers and school leaders emerge from the intensity of term time and reconnect with family and friends they have barely seen since the last break.
After decades in education, some of my closest friends are people who work in schools. We always look forward to catching up during the holidays. Yet, almost inevitably, one or two people arrive feeling unwell—having come down with a virus as soon as the term ended.
For many years, that person was often me.
I used to think I was simply unlucky. But there is a name for this pattern: leisure sickness.
It describes the physical symptoms some people experience when a period of sustained pressure suddenly ends. After weeks or months of operating at high speed, the body finally has space to register the fatigue and strain it has been carrying.
The Impact of Leisure Sickness
📚 Research suggests that around one in five people experience physical symptoms when a holiday begins, particularly those in high-pressure roles. Prolonged stress can affect immune functioning, sleep and recovery, meaning that symptoms may emerge once the pressure lifts.
We also know that holidays can improve wellbeing but those benefits can fade quickly on returning to work if the conditions creating pressure have not changed.
For staff in schools, this is understandable. Terms often end at full speed and the next one begins in a sprint. There is little time to decompress, recover or reset.
So even after a break, some people return still tired and fatigued. For a few, that may be the result of late nights and a busy social calendar. But for many, it is not.
It is the cumulative impact of working in demanding roles for long periods without enough opportunity to pause.
We may not be able to change the experience of this summer holiday. But there is still time to think differently about the start of the next academic year.
Creating a healthier return
What can school leaders do to help staff arrive at the next break in a better position to rest and recharge?
Rethink the September start.
Where possible, hold back on monitoring, major decisions and new initiatives in the first few weeks. Giving staff time to reconnect, regain rhythm and settle into the term can create a more sustainable pace from the outset.
Protect energy and pace the workload.
Avoid unnecessary last-minute changes. Build in short pauses between meetings and be clear about what needs immediate attention. And try to stick to these priorities, a smuch as possible!
Increase autonomy where possible.
Giving staff control over how they plan, teach and manage their work supports both wellbeing, motivation and performance.
Model healthy boundaries.
Boundaries start with leadership. For example be clear about expectations around emails and response times. Notice the language used by staff. For example, “we just need to get through this term” can normalise an unhealthy pace. When leaders take breaks, protect their time and demonstrate that boundaries are acceptable, it gives others permission to do the same.
Karen Forshaw is an Organisational Psychologist, former Headteacher and founder of HumanEdge Performance. She works with schools and trusts to build healthier, more sustainable working cultures where staff can remain well and effective, enabling both people and organisations to thrive over the long term.
Karen provides reflective supervision for school leaders and education professionals, creating structured space to reflect, process complexity and sustain effective practice in rewarding but demanding roles. She also delivers workshops on work–life balance, boundary setting and psychological safety, and works with leadership teams to diagnose the root causes of staff stress through a structured framework, helping schools improve the conditions shaping day-to-day staff experience.
Curious About the Research?
📚 Here’s where the insights came from:
de Bloom, J., Geurts, S. A. E., Taris, T. W., Sonnentag, S., de Weerth, C., & Kompier, M. A. J. (2010). Effects of vacation from work on health and well-being: Lots of fun, quickly gone. Work & Stress, 24(2), 196–216. https://doi.org/10.1080/02678373.2010.493385
Segerstrom, S. C., & Miller, G. E. (2004). Psychological Stress and the Human Immune System: A Meta-Analytic Study of 30 Years of Inquiry. Psychological Bulletin, 130(4), 601–630. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.130.4.601
Heck, van, & Ad Vingerhoets. (2007). Leisure Sickness: A Biopsychosocial Perspective. Psihologijske Teme, 16(2). https://www.researchgate.net/publication/26571455_Leisure_Sickness_A_Biopsychosocial_Perspective
IU Internationale Hochschule. (2025, June 24). IU study about leisure sickness | IU News. https://www.iu.de/news/en/leisure-sickness-one-in-five-feels-ill-or-exhausted-on-holiday/
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