Working From Home Without Losing Your Mind: A Psychologist's Guide
- Sarah El Nabulsi, M.Sc., M.A., M.A.
- Jul 20
- 6 min read
Based on the Intervew on MBC1 Sabah Al Khair Ya Arab, April 15, 2020
When the COVID-19 pandemic sent millions of people home to work, many assumed it would be a welcome change — no commute, more flexibility, time with family. But as I explained in an April 2020 interview on MBC1's Sabah Al Khair Ya Arab, the reality is far more complicated. Working from home is genuinely difficult. And the science explains why.
It's Harder Than It Looks
Unlike people who chose remote work and gradually built the skills and environment for it, most of us during COVID were thrust into it overnight — not at a neutral time, but in the middle of profound global uncertainty, job losses, and collective fear. The challenge wasn't just logistical. It was psychological.
Working from home requires high levels of self-management and intrinsic motivation — traits that take time to develop and are easily undermined by chronic stress. And stress, as it turned out, was exactly what COVID brought in abundance.
Why You Can't Focus: It's Cortisol, Not Laziness
One of the most common complaints I heard from clients during this period: "I sit at my desk all day but accomplish nothing. I feel lazy, fatigued, like time just slips by."
This is not laziness. This is biology.
When we experience chronic stress, the body releases elevated levels of cortisol — the primary stress hormone. While cortisol is useful in short bursts, chronically elevated levels impair prefrontal cortex function — the part of the brain responsible for focus, planning, and decision-making (Lupien et al., 2009). The result is exactly what people describe: an inability to concentrate, heightened irritability, and a body preoccupied with its own signals — heart palpitations, shallow breathing, a persistent sense of unease.
Without self-awareness, these stress responses go unregulated. We push through rather than down-regulate, and the cortisol stays high. True productivity becomes biologically impossible.
Re-Creating Stability: The Foundation of Focus
The antidote to COVID-era stress is not willpower. It is structure. When external certainty disappears, we have to rebuild it deliberately — through routine.
Wake up early and get dressed. This is not about aesthetics. Maintaining pre-pandemic routines — including the physical ritual of preparing for work — signals to the brain that it is time to shift into a productive state (Martell et al., 2001). The act of changing out of pajamas is a physiological cue, not a trivial one.
Dedicate a specific space for work. The brain encodes context. When we work from the couch, the couch becomes associated with both work and rest — and neither gets done well. A dedicated workspace, even a corner of a table, gives the brain the spatial anchor it needs to enter a focused mode.
Protect your concentration with privacy. Constant interruptions carry a real cognitive cost. Research on task-switching shows it can take over 20 minutes to fully regain focus after an interruption (Mark et al., 2008). If complete privacy isn't possible, communicate clearly with family about your working hours.
Combatting Social Isolation
One dimension of COVID lockdowns that cannot be overstated is social isolation — and the damage it does.
Human beings are not designed for isolation. Our nervous systems require social contact to regulate themselves. Holt-Lunstad et al. (2015) found that chronic social isolation is as significant a risk factor for premature mortality as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Connection is not a luxury. It is a health necessity.
During this period, I encouraged clients to be conscientious — intentional — about maintaining human contact. This means actively scheduling calls on Zoom, Skype, or WhatsApp rather than waiting to feel like it. The goal is to simulate the normalcy of real conversation and restore some of what the pandemic stripped away.
Work With Your Biology, Not Against It
One genuine advantage of remote work is timing flexibility. Rather than using it randomly, align your schedule with your internal physiological clock.
This principle is supported by both chronobiology and ancient wisdom. In Ayurveda — one of the world's oldest systems of health and wellbeing — the early morning hours are considered the period of greatest mental clarity and concentration. Modern research on circadian rhythms confirms this: cognitive performance, including working memory and executive function, peaks in the mid-morning for most people and declines after midday (Schmidt et al., 2007).
The practical implication: schedule your most demanding, complex tasks in the morning. Leave emails, administrative tasks, and less cognitively demanding work for the afternoon.
Setting Boundaries: You Cannot Carry Heavy Weights Indefinitely
One of the more insidious challenges of remote work is the collapse of the boundary between work and home. When managers and colleagues send messages at all hours, constant availability becomes the unspoken expectation.
This is not sustainable — and I use a simple analogy: imagine carrying a 10kg weight in each hand. You can hold them for a certain amount of time. But eventually, your arms will drop. You cannot sustain maximum effort indefinitely. The brain, like the body, requires genuine recovery.
Research on psychological detachment from work shows that mentally disengaging during non-work hours is essential for preventing burnout and sustaining performance over time (Sonnentag & Bayer, 2005). I strongly support a structured approach: a clear start time, a clear end time, and a firm boundary when that time arrives. Close the laptop. Put the phone down.
This boundary protects not only your own mental health — it protects everyone living with you.
The Impact on Your Children
If you have children at home, your stress levels matter more than you may realise.
Children do not process the world abstractly. They read their environment — and specifically, they read you. When a parent is calm, the household tends to be calm. When a parent is highly stressed or irritable, children absorb this — not just emotionally, but neurobiologically.
Our nervous systems are social organs. Research on emotional contagion shows that human beings continuously and unconsciously detect stress signals in people around them and mirror those signals in their own bodies (Hatfield et al., 1993). For children — whose nervous systems are still developing and far more sensitive — a stressed parent is a physiological stressor in itself. Cortisol levels in children demonstrably rise in response to elevated parental stress (Gunnar & Donzella, 2002).
This is not a reason for guilt. It is a reason for self-compassion — because taking care of your own nervous system isdirectly caring for your children.
Practically, this means:
Protect children from stressful news and difficult adult conversations — these do not need to happen in front of them. Distribute responsibilities at home: involve your partner, and give children age-appropriate tasks. Normalise asking for help, including in areas a spouse may not have been involved in previously. A household in which responsibilities are distributed fairly and sustainably is a healthier household for everyone.
A Final Note
The pandemic reminded us — in the most disruptive way possible — that productivity is not just about discipline or time management. It is about nervous system regulation, physical environment, social connection, and the quality of our boundaries.
If you are struggling with focus, anxiety, irritability, or family tension — you are not failing. You are responding normally to an abnormal situation. And with the right strategies and support, it gets better.
References
Gunnar, M.R., & Donzella, B. (2002). Social regulation of the cortisol levels in early human development. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 27(1–2), 199–220.
Hatfield, E., Cacioppo, J.T., & Rapson, R.L. (1993). Emotional contagion. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 2(3), 96–99.
Holt-Lunstad, J., Smith, T.B., Baker, M., Harris, T., & Stephenson, D. (2015). Loneliness and social isolation as risk factors for mortality: A meta-analytic review. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 10(2), 227–237.
Lupien, S.J., McEwen, B.S., Gunnar, M.R., & Heim, C. (2009). Effects of stress throughout the lifespan on the brain, behaviour and cognition. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 10(6), 434–445.
Mark, G., Gudith, D., & Klocke, U. (2008). The cost of interrupted work: More speed and stress. Proceedings of the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 107–110.
Martell, C.R., Addis, M.E., & Jacobson, N.S. (2001). Depression in Context: Strategies for Guided Action. W.W. Norton.
Schmidt, C., Collette, F., Cajochen, C., & Peigneux, P. (2007). A time to think: Circadian rhythms in human cognition. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 24(7), 755–789.
Sonnentag, S., & Bayer, U.V. (2005). Switching off mentally: Predictors and consequences of psychological detachment from work during off-job time. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 10(4), 393–414.
About the Author
Ms. Sarah El Nabulsi, M.Sc., M.A., M.A. is a DHA Licensed Clinical Psychologist based in Dubai and the UAE Director of the Transcendental Meditation Organization. She specialises in anxiety, stress, trauma, emotional wellbeing, and integrative approaches to mental health. She has been featured on MBC1, BBC Arabic, Sky News Arabia, and Kalam Nawa3em.
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