It's not a novel concept to say that modern life has us all cognitively exhausted. But new research suggests that Gen Z in particular are struggling.

Data from the Rest Rebate study from Mudgee Tourism shows that Gen Z in particular say they feel like they can never fully switch off. 63 per cent of Gen Zs (the highest of all cohorts) said they feel guilty for doing nothing on holiday. 41 per cent of them said they spend more than three hours on their phones even while on holiday, again the highest of all cohorts. 78 percent said they're regularly checking work messages out of hours and 47 per cent said they feel guilty if they don't reply, once again, these figures are the highest of all the age cohorts.

While the pressures of modern life are largely the same for all working people, Gen Z are undeniably feeling the most psychological pressure. The reason that they can't switch off? Perhaps because they never learned how.

"Older generations know what "off" feels like because they have a reference point to return to. Gen Z doesn't," says clinical psychologist Dr Maria-Elena Lukeides, who has reviewed and leant expertise to Mudgee Tourism's research. "For them, being "on" is the only state they've ever known, so it doesn't register as something to change, it just feels like life."

"Add early-career pressure, proving yourself, job insecurity, housing costs and switching off isn't just hard, it's unimaginable."

How exactly did Gen Z arrive in this place? And if you see yourself in these statistic, what can you do to learn to switch off?

Gen Z live in a world they weren't a part of creating

For many Gen Zs, they have to abide by a social contract that they didn't write or create. Millennials are the last generation that experienced a world without the internet or mobile, but for Gen Z, it's always been there. By 2000, (when the first Gen Z were three years old) 37 per cent of households already had an internet connection. And in 2007 (when the first Gen Zs were just 10) the iPhone was released, the event that popularised the smartphone.

"Gen Z grew up inside an attention economy they didn't build," said Dr Lukeides. "Feeling unable to switch off is rational response to an environment engineered to hold attention."

Baby Boomers, Gen Xers and even Millennials will remember a time where you could simply run out of things to do in the evenings or on the weekend. You'd seen all the episodes of the three current TV series, you'd watched all the DVDs in your house (more than once), you'd read all the books on your shelf, you'd played all the boardgames, done all the jigsaw puzzles, you'd called all your friends on the land-line... there was nothing left but to rest, lounge and lean into your own boredom. But as for Gen Z, they'll perhaps never be confronted with this kind of boredom in their lives.

"Gen Z grew up inside an attention economy they didn't build."

"Boredom is the state that precedes daydreaming and genuine rest; when the mind has nothing to react to, it wanders, and that wandering is where the nervous system recovers," said Dr Lukeides. "Gen Z has a device that eliminates boredom within seconds, so the brain never gets permission to drift."

Dr Lukeides says that without traditional "boredom" and therefore never finding true mental makes the issue more complicated for Gen Zs who are looking to break free. "You can't return to a state you've never experienced," she says. "For this generation, rest is encountered for the first time, not recovered."

Hustle culture says rest is laziness

The inability to actively to choose to switch off is propelled by social media, hustle culture, wealth inequality and economic insecurity. In fact, all of these reinforce each other.

"Social media makes everyone else's productivity visible and comparable at any hour. Economic insecurity makes slowing down feel like falling behind rather than self-care," said Dr Lukeides. "Together, rest stops feeling like a reward and starts feeling like a threat."

In a society that often ties self-worth to productive output, rest is easily devalued. That's because rest does not produce anything tangible.

You can't pour from an empty cup.

"The real issue is framing, because nobody wants feel like they 'do nothing,'" she says. Instead Dr Lukeides says we need to frame our downtime as a way of 'receiving' than simply doing nothing. She says that going for an untimed walk, taking a yoga class, a long lunch or even uncounted hours spent lazing in a vineyard as all ways of paying yourself back for your constant output. After all, you can't pour from an empty cup.

When work and relaxation converge inside the same tool

We all know that our phones form a big part of the problem. Yes, they're full of addictive social media apps, but the bigger problem is that they don't allow us any separation from our work lives.

Each check or review of your work messages, of your news push notifications, of your banking app is a small stress-response activation, a pulse of adrenalin. When these checks never stop, your stress hormones stay elevated and hold you in a constant state of vigilance that is genuinely exhausting mentally and for your nervous system.

But when your downtime plans, social connections, friends, family and holiday plans are also accessed on the same device as our work and news, the problem becomes more complex.

"What I see clinically is that the tools they use to work, socialise and relax are all the same tool," Dr Lukeides says. "When your job, your friendships and your downtime all live on one screen, there's no natural boundary where recovery can begin."

So what is the fix? We need to learn to change the conditions, not the person. Because willpower alone isn't enough.

How to find genuine rest

Dr Lukeides says the the key to learning to switch off is boundaries. And those boundaries are with yourself.

"If the message arrives at 9pm, don't open it."

The same goes for the early mornings. She says starting the day by 'receiving' or filling your cup will be holistically more beneficial than starting the day by 'doing'.

"Give yourself the first twenty or thirty minutes of the day in 'receiving'. What you do with those first minutes of the morning matters less than what you don't do," she says. "Drink your coffee looking out a window. Sit outside for five minutes. It sounds almost too small to matter, but the first input of the day sets the nervous system's tone for the hours that follow."

The next part is about fixing your work-life balance, and to do this, you need to optimise the hours that you are online. You need to manage both up and down and set reasonable expectations.

"The second skill is communicating early and well during work hours. A manager told early that something will slip is understanding; told at the deadline, they feel ambushed," she said.

If the first thing you think to do when it's time to relax is grab your phone and scroll, you're doing it wrong.

She also outlines that true recovery and 'switch off' comes from real stillness, not doomscrolling. If the first thing you think to do when it's time to relax is grab your phone and scroll, you're doing it wrong.

"Scrolling feels like rest because it is effortless, often horizontal and nothing is asked of you, but the brain is having a different experience," she says. "Every few seconds there's a new stimulus to appraise: keep watching or swipe, a hit of novelty, a flicker of comparison. It's the postural opposite of receiving, disguised as receiving."

Her simple test to see whether scrolling was filling your cup, ask yourself honestly how you feel afterwards. Genuine rest should leave you clearer.

Another key part of the equation is learning to take your holidays. There is a reason why we get paid time off as part of our employment. And there is certainly a strategic way to take your leave for the best benefit. While one big holiday sounds like a great idea, it can leave you running on empty for most of the year.

"The research supports regular, shorter breaks every few months, topping up before you're depleted rather than rescuing yourself after," she said. But your holiday rest needs to be real rest, not performative stillness.

"Day one of a holiday feels harder than expected," she says.  "It usually takes two or three days for the hands to come off, which is why a two-night weekend so often isn't enough. Three nights is where a short break starts doing a holiday's work."

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