It starts innocently. A notification at 7:15 a.m. A Slack message during breakfast. Three video calls back to back, a software update that breaks your favourite spreadsheet, a password that expires at the worst possible moment, and an inbox that seems to refill itself every time you blink. By evening, you are not physically tired, but you feel like a smartphone at 3 percent battery, dimmed and desperately looking for a charger.
Researchers call this digital stress, or technostress: the strain that comes directly from working with technology. A recent study tackles a question that has received surprisingly little attention. We know a great deal about what stresses us out digitally. But how do people actually recover from it? And do we all recover in the same way?
Good stress, bad stress
Not all digital stress is created equal. Researchers distinguish between two broad types. “Hindrance” stressors are the ones that get in the way: information overload, constant interruptions, privacy worries, or the fear that new technology will make your job obsolete. These tend to lead to burnout and frustration.
“Challenge” stressors, on the other hand, can be oddly energising. Learning to master a new tool, or having the freedom to decide how you use technology in your work, can feel demanding but also rewarding. They push you to grow. Think of the difference between wrestling with a printer that refuses to cooperate and finally cracking a tricky new piece of software. Both raise your heart rate, but only one leaves you feeling clever afterwards.
Recovery is different from coping. Coping is what you do in the moment, like taking a deep breath before replying to an annoying email. Recovery is the broader process of returning to your normal state after the stress has passed, often during evenings, weekends, and holidays. Psychologists usually describe four ingredients of recovery. Detachment means mentally switching off from work. Relaxation means calm, low-effort activities. Mastery means doing something challenging but enjoyable outside work, like learning a language or climbing a wall. Control means having the freedom to decide how you spend your free time.
From averages to personalities
Most earlier research looked at these ingredients one at a time, asking, for example, whether detachment in general reduces stress. The trouble is that people are not averages. Some of us unwind on the sofa with a series; others need a five-kilometre run to feel human again. Ingwersen and Zeller-Lanzl took a different approach. Instead of studying recovery ingredients separately, they looked for distinct types of people who combine them in characteristic ways.
To do this, they ran a daily diary study with 116 working adults in the United States. For an entire working week, participants filled out two short surveys every day: one in the morning, recording their mood, and one in the evening, recording their mood again, the digital stressors they had faced, and how they had spent their time recovering. This approach captures feelings close to when they happen rather than relying on fuzzy memories weeks later. A statistical technique then grouped participants into profiles based on their recovery patterns.
Meet the four recovery types
The analysis revealed four distinct profiles, and you may well recognise yourself in one of them.
The largest group, almost half of participants, were the Mainstream Rechargers. They balance detachment, relaxation, and control fairly evenly, with a modest dose of mastery on the side. They are the steady middle of the road, sensible and unremarkable in the best possible way.
The second largest group, a little over a third, were the Relaxation Seekers. They score high on switching off, relaxing, and controlling their free time, but have the lowest interest in mastery of any group. After a hard day, they are not signing up for pottery classes. They are horizontal, and proud of it.
About one in eight were Balanced Recoverers, who use all four ingredients at moderate levels but lean less on detachment and relaxation than the others.
The smallest group, just a few percent, were the Engaged Recoverers. They are the only group that prioritises mastery, and they detach from work less than others. Rather than escaping, they recharge by staying active and challenged. You probably know one: the colleague who unwinds after a stressful week by training for a marathon.
Interestingly, the groups differed in how much negative mood they experienced. Relaxation Seekers reported the least negative mood, while Balanced Recoverers reported the most. Positive mood, by contrast, did not differ much between groups.
What stress type predicts your recovery type
The study also looked at what pushes people into each profile. People who faced more challenge stressors were more likely to be Mainstream Rechargers, Engaged Recoverers, or Relaxation Seekers rather than Balanced Recoverers. Challenge stress seems to motivate people to engage actively in recovery. Hindrance stressors had the opposite effect, reducing the likelihood of belonging to any of the more active recovery profiles. When technology simply gets in your way, you may end up too drained to recover properly, a cruel irony. Personal circumstances mattered too. People with management responsibilities were more likely to be Engaged Recoverers than Relaxation Seekers, perhaps because managers seek out activities that restore their sense of competence and control.
Why this matters for workplaces
Research does not tell us which recovery style is “best,” and the sample was limited to English-speaking workers in the United States. Still, the implications are practical. One-size-fits-all wellbeing programmes may miss the mark. Offering everyone a meditation app will delight the Relaxation Seekers and bore the Engaged Recoverers to tears. Organisations could instead tailor support to different recovery styles.
Perhaps more importantly, the findings suggest employers should pay close attention to hindrance stressors. Reducing pointless interruptions, clunky systems, and information overload may not only lower stress directly but also free up the energy people need to recover.
As for the rest of us, the next time someone suggests you “just switch off” after a stressful day, you can politely explain that you are an Engaged Recoverer and will be switching off by learning the cello. Or, if you prefer, a Relaxation Seeker, and you will be switching off on the sofa. Science, it turns out, supports both.
Reference
Ingwersen, B., & Zeller-Lanzl, J. (2025). Are you a relaxation seeker or a mainstream recharger? A profile-based approach to recovery from digital stress. In ICIS 2025 Proceedings.
