The badge removed at day’s end does not always release the responsibility immediately.

Taking off the uniform does not switch off the part of you that was on duty. Nurses, teachers, carers and anyone responsible for other people often carry the day home for an hour or two, checking mentally that something was handed over properly, replaying a face from the afternoon. That lag is not a failure to separate work from life. It is what happens when the work was about people rather than tasks.

Give yourself a short crossing ritual: a walk, a change of clothes, a few minutes doing nothing before the house begins. And tell whoever you live with that the first half hour is still coming down.