False disconnection, or the art of slowly exhausting
“”Staying connected is believing that you want. While we run slowly “alert Jean-Christophe Villette, work psychologist and managing director of Ekilibre Conseil. For him, the cultivation of hyperdistapability harms mental health as much as to sustainable performance. The last barometer Ekilibre Conseil/OpinionWay (June 2025) is final: 82 % of assets say they are in a professional fatigue situation.
The false disconnection – this habit of consulting your “quickly” emails, staying “reachable” or scroller Linkedin between two swimming – maintains an illusion of control. But the side effects are very real: insomnia, mental overload, drop in concentration, prolonged stress. “”We do not go lighter by taking the whole business in his suitcase “underlines the specialist.
Disconnect for real: three essential reflexes
To really cut, Jean-Christophe Villette offers a three-step approach:
- Delegate from J-5 : Anticipate the absence, transmit the files in progress, designate a clear referent.
- Disconnect without guilt : temporarily uninstall pro applications, activate your lack of absence, cut notifications.
- Go back : Provide a recovery airlock, sort your emails by block, push important decisions.
10 concrete gestures for a real mental break
Coming from the Ekilibre Field Experience with more than 120 companies, these 10 simple gestures allow real mental disconnection:
- Prepare a transmission checklist 5 days before departure;
- Provisionally uninstall professional applications;
- Impose a total no-drive in the first 48 hours;
- Sleep with the phone out of the room;
- Provide a single weekly niche for emergencies (if really necessary)
- Hold a journal of ideas to reopen only at the start of the school year
- An anchor in physical or creative activities (cooking, walking, sport, etc.)
- Explaining to his loved ones what to disconnect means concretely
- Create a cut -off ritual: reading, music, silence
- Organize a collective debrief on the return: what worked, which is to be adjusted
Disconnection: a duty of organization, not an individual challenge
For Jean-Christophe Villette, responsibility should not rest on the shoulders of the only employee. “”The right to disconnection is a duty of organization “he insists. This implies a clear framework, formalized penalty rules, and management that values delegation rather than hyper-presence.
If the summer break becomes a collective ritual, supported by the organization, it then becomes a lever of sustainable performance and reinforced mental health. This is the challenge offered by Ekilibre Consulting to businesses: making disconnection a standard … and no longer an exception.