The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos How to Stop Work From Taking Over Your Life
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Mar 16, 2026 
Ben Walter, CEO of Chase for Business and small-business advisor, and Guy Winch, clinical psychologist and bestselling author, discuss how work stress seeps into life. They explore threat versus challenge mindsets, ways to stop rumination, practical rituals to protect evenings, and strategies to offload high-stress tasks and build recovery routines.
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Call Tasks Nuisances And Do Them Now
- Rename unpleasant, procrastinated tasks as "nuisances" to make them actionable and short-lived.
- Guy Winch says treating a difficult email or spreadsheet as a nuisance makes you do it immediately instead of smearing 15 minutes over a week.
Rumination Turns Work Moments Into Unpaid Overtime
- Work stress lingers because we replay insults and conflicts at home, creating unpaid overtime of activation.
- Guy Winch warns rumination keeps you in fight-or-flight, harms sleep and mood, and increases long-term health risks.
Catch Rumination Fast And Kick The Skunk
- Develop intolerance for rumination by catching it early and saying no to replaying the incident.
- Guy Winch uses the skunk-on-the-sofa metaphor to train himself to stop the second round of the hamster wheel.
