Stop working so much, Cyprus!

On this island, our professional and personal lives aren’t distinct

Did you know that Cyprus works amongst the longest hours of any country in Europe?

According to the latest Eurostat figures, about 17 per cent of employed Cypriots work in excess of 45 hours per week. Nine hours or more per day!

It’s way higher than the EU average of roughly 11 per cent. And the second highest rate in the EU: Greece pips us to the number one spot, with 21 hours per week.

Those numbers don’t just describe long days. They hint at something subtler: a culture where work rarely has a clear edge…

On this island, our professional and personal lives aren’t distinct. You work with people you already know, or will inevitably bump into later – at the periptero, Lidl, Zorbas; at a child’s party, in the kafeneion, at the pharmacy as you’re buying meds to simply keep you going!

Colleagues become friends. Friends become collaborators. Conversations slide easily from family to deadlines, from weekend plans to ‘just one thing’ that needs sorting.

Add to that a work culture where availability often reads as commitment, and switching off can feel oddly antisocial. Not replying doesn’t just feel unproductive – it can feel impolite. So the day softens rather than ends. The laptop closes, but the mind stays half-open, alert to the next message, the next obligation, the next small ask that’s hard to refuse.

Part of this is structural. Part of it is cultural. And part of it is simply the reality of living and working on a small island.

This is where things get interesting – because our bodies are very good at noticing when something hasn’t properly finished.

Psychologists call this difficulty switching off ‘psychological detachment from work’ – the ability to mentally disengage once the working day is over. It’s not about liking or disliking your job, but about whether your brain ever gets a clear signal that work has ended.

And when it doesn’t, stress responses stay quietly activated, all the time!

Studies consistently link this low detachment to higher strain and poorer recovery, especially in cultures where work communication spills into evenings through messages and informal contact.

What’s striking is that this research doesn’t point to longer holidays or perfect routines as the solution. Instead, it highlights something much smaller: the importance of endings.

The brain, it turns out, responds less to rest itself than to the moment work is clearly over. When there’s no marker – no psychological full stop – the day simply bleeds on.

What helps, the research suggests, isn’t discipline or optimisation, but a signal. Something small that marks the end of one role and the start of another.

For some, it’s the walk home without checking messages. For others, changing clothes, washing hands, sitting on the balcony, or deliberately closing a laptop and not reopening it.

The action itself matters less than the meaning behind it: work is done for today. When the brain gets that message – even briefly – it can begin to stand down. Not perfectly. Not forever. Just enough to let leisure time feel like its own thing again.

Which brings us back to Cyprus and its long working hours. On an island where work and life overlap so easily, the problem isn’t that we don’t stop. It’s that stopping is rarely acknowledged.

And sometimes, feeling better isn’t about doing less or fixing ourselves – it’s about giving the day a clear ending, so the rest of life can finally begin.