What happens when you try to switch off?

You’ve finished for the day, but your head’s still at work. You’re replaying a conversation, checking a decision or running through tomorrow, and your shoulders haven’t come down yet. These questions help you see what’s going on and what you’d like to be different.

Nine optional questions for adults, about two minutes. No score or diagnosis. No email needed.

Think of a recent week

Use the past week, or a recent week that was more typical. You can go back, change your answers or skip a question.

At the end, you’ll see how your answers fit together, what tends to keep a pattern like that going and one thing to try tonight.

Your answers stay in this page while you use it. They aren’t sent to Rugby Hypnotherapy or saved when you leave. How this works.

What are these questions based on?

These questions follow the way I’d start a first conversation: when it starts, what happens in your head and your body, what you tell yourself, what you do next and what’s different on an easier evening. In therapy this is called a formulation, a map of the pattern drawn before trying to change anything.

The question about what you’d worry might happen if you stopped comes from metacognitive therapy, developed by Adrian Wells, which looks at the beliefs that keep worry going. The easier-evening question comes from solution-focused work, which starts from what already goes right.

The explanations in your summary draw on published research, and each one names its source. The questions themselves are mine, written for this page. They’re for reflection and haven’t been validated as a questionnaire. None of the researchers or organisations named here has reviewed them.

Sources: NHS guidance on worries, NHS problem-solving guidance and HSE Management Standards.

Want to talk it through?

We can discuss what’s happening, what you’d like to change and whether working together makes sense.

Find out about the free consultation

Join the newsletter and get the guide

Join my occasional newsletter for practical ideas and news about workshops and services. As a welcome gift, I’ll send you Switching Off After a Demanding Day. It goes further than these questions: why the day keeps going round, the night shift handover with a worked example, how to wind down, and the switching-off advice I’d skip.

You’ll confirm by email first. The guide follows after that. You can unsubscribe at any time and keep it. Your questionnaire answers and summary aren’t passed to the sign-up form.