Picture the scene – you’re at work and immersed in completing a complex report, utterly in the zone, when the beep of the dishwasher finishing its cycle breaks through your concentration. Or the doorbell rings. Or you remember the washing needs putting on. You do it (of course you do – it’ll only take two minutes) but, when you return to your desk at the kitchen table you find your thread of concentration has gone. What were you doing before you stood up?

It could easily be dismissed as an insignificant occurrence, but it turns out that such small, menial domestic tasks are actually driving one of the most significant mental health challenges of modern remote work.

New research from Durham University Business School finds that blurring the lines between home and work responsibilities is not only disrupting work output but also driving up worker stress levels.

The dishwasher effect

Whilst the benefits of remote work are plentiful, Durham’s Professor Jakob Stollberger cautions that unless remote staff guard their time and their focus more securely, they will be impossible to realise.

“Stepping away from a work task to unload a dishwasher and then returning to it requires more mental effort to self-regulate and refocus than it would if they felt able to stay focused on work and tackled domestic tasks later on,” he states.

With colleagues from South-East Technological University, Trinity College Dublin, Universität Wuppertal, and the University of Queensland, Professor Stollberger collected and analysed diary data from remote workers across a wide range of industries; teaching, finance, public administration, IT and academia.

The workers had been asked to record information relating to their workload and wellbeing four times each day for 10 days. The finding? When domestic life bled into work time, stress levels for workers rose, and wellbeing fell.

The crux of the issue, they found, was work flow. On days when workers recorded experiencing deep absorption and focus on their work tasks (a strong level of work flow), the negative impact of domestic interruptions on their day markedly decreased. On the other hand, on days where staff reported frustration, stress, lower productivity and general dissatisfaction, it was found that their work flow levels had been low and distractions had been numerous.

Crucially, the researchers noted, the harm was not confined to lost work-time and productivity. The mental cost for staff in having to reassemble their concentration after moving between domestic and professional priorities was found to drag out the work day, with remote staff spending more time at their desks in an attempt to complete tasks, and struggling to switch off and relax when they finally stepped away.

Flexibility versus isolation

This finding is not unusual. An investigation undertaken by the CIPD in 2024 presented to UK parliament similarly found that remote and hybrid work can result in “work extensification, isolation and disconnection, issues with switching off and boundary management, and physical health challenges.”

Professor Stollberger found evidence of poor wellbeing for remote staff too. “Despite benefits such as greater flexibility and autonomy for staff, research has also uncovered less positive consequences such as loneliness and disconnection, as well as increased stress for workers,” he continues.

Research from Colorado State University College of Business highlights the disconnect felt by remote staff which not only fuels loneliness but can also lead to a loss of self.

Professor Samantha Conroy’s exploration into the psychological wellbeing of remote workers, spanning over 400 remote workers, found that the gradual erosion of ordinary professional social rituals such as chatting with colleagues in the corridor, sharing lunch breaks, casual problem-solving over the desk shifts workers toward a state of being alone in a way that feels qualitatively different from chosen solitude.

Remote employees experiencing such professional isolation and disconnect reported feeling less engaged and more depleted – key indicators of professional burnout.

A further exploration published in the Journal of Occupational Health reinforced these findings. University employees who reported isolation were 78% more likely to also experience poor wellbeing and elevated stress than colleagues who did not feel isolated. Furthermore, approximately a quarter of those workers experienced clinically significant levels of anxiety or depression.

The CIPD’s 2025 Health and Wellbeing report also found that mental ill health now represents the leading cause of long-term workplace absence in the UK.

It’s clear that something needs to change.

Mind over matter

Connection, it seems, matters. Remote workers must be able to feel connected to their organisation, and those within it, when physically distant from them. But, even with remote work being the new normal of professional life, numerous studies have shown that organisations still struggle to navigate relationship-building with remote staff.

Managers either fall into the trap of out of sight and out of mind, or overcompensate and check-up far too frequently on employees. The former results in poor communication, low engagement and performance, and plenty of opportunity for misunderstanding and resentment to fill the void. The latter suffocates employees with meetings and emails, ramping up pressure to get jobs done and helping to fuel a sense that remote staff are not trusted in their commitment or capability.

Smart technology cannot always be relied upon to close the gap. For example; tools that monitor mouse movements and other digital activity might be marketed to managers as engagement tools but do very little to dissuade staff from that feeling.

Whilst many would take the above as all the more reason to get staff back to the office, Professor Stollberger points out that not only is remote work unlikely to be abandoned, but achieving high work flow in a busy office environment can also be tricky. Work flow fluctuates day to day, and is often beyond our control.

So what can be done to ensure performance and wellbeing remain high? Professor Stollberger shares a number of simple steps remote workers can take to create a better environment for high work flow.

For example, making a conscious effort to schedule periods of focus where workers are less likely to be distracted by domestic life, or creating a dedicated work space such as a spare room-turned-office rather than the kitchen table to remove the temptation to complete home tasks, and even setting aside time to break from all responsibilities and reset are all advised. Dedicating lunch hours to chores may feel productive, but can be mentally exhausting in the long run.

Managers too can support with such plans, blocking time in diaries and respecting the need for remote staff to focus rather than prove their presence.

But Professor Conroy’s work cautions against treating all remote work arrangements the same. Her study revealed that whilst setting aside blocks of time for better focus could improve work outcomes, it had little meaningful effect on work engagement.

Furthermore, whilst doing this was beneficial for senior employees tackling complex, independent work, uninterrupted focus time could actively reduce wellbeing for junior employees who reported needing social interaction, guidance and the feeling of team connection to make progress. In short, managers must get better at connecting with remote staff in the right ways, recognising needs and removing blanket policies that support some workers’ needs but stifle others.

In tackling stress and poor mental health. Professor Stollberger offers another approach… mindfulness.

His research revealed that workers who engaged in mindfulness practices at the start of the day found that their wellbeing remained more stable even when work flow was low. Putting such measures in place created some mental resilience to unstructured and disrupted days meaning that staff were better able to recover themselves and refocus back on the task at hand.

Such measures, Professor Stollberger says should be led from the top. Introducing company-wide mindfulness-based training programmes can help staff to recognise potential work-home interruption behaviours they may not have noticed before, and act to address them.

This, alongside practices which ensure remote workers can keep pace and connection with office-based colleagues, and treading the balance between keeping in touch and keeping watch over staff can help to cement goodwill, good work and good health, building a set of conditions under which employers can support mental health in remote working arrangements, rather than corrode it.

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