Balanced Academic

There’s nothing better than reaching the end of a busy stretch and realizing there are no immediate deadlines on the horizon. You finally have a little space to breathe. You make plans with a friend, schedule a quiet evening for yourself, put on a favourite show – things that are meant to feel restorative.

And yet the relief doesn’t quite land.

There’s a voice in the background that doesn’t go away. The one that says you should probably get a head start on that assignment. That the proposal deadline isn’t that far away, and it wouldn’t hurt to start the literature review. That the paperwork you’ve been avoiding would be easiest to do now, while you “have time.”

You recognize the voice. It’s the reminder that there is always more work to be done.

Time with your friend ends up feeling more draining than intentional. The self-care night turns into spiralling thoughts. The show plays, but you barely register it. Even after doing the things to help you recharge, you still feeling exhausted – like you haven’t really rested at all.

This experience is common in grad school, and it’s often confusing. On paper, you’re doing everything “right.” You’re taking breaks. You’re making time for yourself. You’re not even especially busy in that moment. And yet, rest feels incomplete – fragile, easily interrupted.

The exhaustion here doesn’t come from how much work you’re doing. It comes from how available the work always is.

Why the Work Never Really Turns Off

In many kinds of work, there are natural stopping points. A shift ends. A task is completed. 5 o’clock rolls around. Even when the work is demanding, there’s often a clear sense of when you’re off.

Graduate school rarely works that way.

Much of academic work is open-ended by design. Reading can always go deeper. Writing can always be revised. Ideas can always be refined, expanded, or better justified. There is no obvious moment when the work is finished – only moments when you decide to stop.

On top of that, much of the work in graduate school doesn’t look like work at all. Thinking through a problem while making dinner. Noticing a paper you should probably read. Mentally rehearsing how you might frame a paragraph, argument, or response to feedback. These moments are easy to dismiss as unproductive, but they quietly keep your mind tethered to your academic responsibility. (I’ve written more about this more in The Invisible Work of Grad School: Why You’re More Productive Than You Think).

This is part of why rest in grad school can feel so porous. Even when you’re not actively working, your attention remains partially occupied. The work doesn’t need you at a desk to stay present – it follows you into your evening, weekends, and supposedly free time.

Importantly, this isn’t a failure of discipline or boundaries. It’s a predictable response to a system where the work has no clear edges. When there is always something you could be doing, it becomes difficult to feel fully done, even temporarily.

The Emotional Cost of Constant Availability

When work is always present in the background, it doesn’t just take up cognitive space – it shapes how you experience your time. Rest become something you try to justify. Leisure starts to feel provisional, as though it needs to be earned or defended.

There’s often a low-grade sense of guilt attached to doing anything that isn’t obviously productive. Even enjoyable moments can carry an undercurrent of “I should be using this time better,” especially when you’re aware of how much work remains unfinished. Over time, this makes it difficult to fully settle into time off, even when you’ve intentionally made space for it.

This kind of exhaustion can be confusing because it doesn’t always come from overwork in the traditional sense. You might not be pulling long hours or facing immediate deadlines. Instead, the fatigue comes from never feeling fully off – from holding unfinished tasks in mind, from making constant micro-decisions about whether you should be working, resting, or doing something in between.

What makes this particularly hard is that it often goes unnamed. Because you’re technically “not working,” it can feel like you have no clear justification for feeling drained. The result is a quiet emotional load – one that accumulates slowly and is easy to dismiss, even as it erodes your ability to recharge.

This is why advice about “better boundaries” or “more intentional rest” can feel insufficient.

If rest feels difficult in grad school, it’s likely not because you don’t know how to relax. When work is always conceptually unfinished, rest becomes fragile by default. Naming that reality doesn’t solve it – but it can help you approach your own exhaustion with a little more understanding, rather than frustration.

If posts like this help you feel a little less alone in your grad school journey, I’d love for you to stick around. Like, subscribe, or share in the comments what’s your relationship with rest been like in grad school?