We talk a lot about work-life balance, but sometimes, the effect of a tough workday doesn’t just stay at work.
It follows us home. And according to new research from the University of East Anglia, the impact might be showing up in our sleep. Or rather, our lack of it.
This isn’t just about tossing and turning after a stressful meeting. It’s deeper. The study suggests that workplace stress, specifically bullying, can disturb sleep patterns in a very real way. Not just for the person on the receiving end, but for their partner also.
It’s an unsettling thought: that the culture we tolerate in our offices, whether in-person or remote, might be quietly unravelling someone’s rest. Or their relationship.
What the research found (and why it matters)
The study, published in February 2025 in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence, looked at how workplace bullying affects not only an employee’s sleep, but also their partner’s.
Conducted by the University of East Anglia along with researchers in Spain, it tracked couples over time to measure sleep quality and emotional responses like rumination, particularly anger rumination.
The term ‘anger rumination’ is worth pausing on. It refers to the repetitive loop we get stuck in when we can’t stop thinking about something unjust, frustrating, or painful. We’ve all been there. Replaying that passive-aggressive comment in our head, hours or even days later. It turns out, this mental loop doesn’t just sap our mental energy. It messes with our ability to sleep, and over time, that effect compounds.
What stood out most in the findings was this: the stress doesn’t stop with the individual. When one person is dealing with workplace bullying, their partner often suffers similar sleep disturbances. Not always. But often enough for the researchers to call it ‘contagious insomnia’. Your job might literally be keeping your partner up at night.
The bigger picture for business leaders
From a human perspective, it’s heart breaking. From a business perspective, it should be alarming.
If stress and toxicity at work are seeping into people’s homes, affecting not just morale but sleep and relationships, what kind of workforce are we cultivating? Tired, distracted, emotionally depleted employees aren’t just less productive. They’re more likely to burn out, disengage, or leave.
Perhaps more surprisingly, many organisations still underestimate the long tail of this problem. We tend to see workplace wellbeing as something you “offer”, like yoga at lunch or a mental health app. But this study reinforces something else entirely: wellbeing isn’t a perk. It’s embedded in culture, in leadership, in how we treat each other every single day.
An inconvenient truth
Now, we should be careful not to draw perfect cause-and-effect lines. Sleep, stress, relationships, they’re complex and messy. This research doesn’t claim that every instance of poor sleep is caused by work stress. Of course not.
But it does draw a strong correlation. And when multiple studies start pointing in the same direction, we need to listen.
The data tells us that bullying at work creates a cognitive and emotional load. That load doesn’t just disappear when the laptop closes. It lingers, sometimes quietly. Sometimes destructively.
So, what can businesses actually do?
Well, to start, we need to stop treating bullying as a ‘personality clash’ or a one-off. It’s not.
Left unchecked, it becomes cultural.
Here are a few things to consider. None of them revolutionary, but they are often ignored:
- Make it clear what is and isn’t acceptable. Not in a vague mission statement, but in policies people understand and see applied.
- Equip managers to lead with emotional intelligence. That includes spotting signs of distress, not just poor performance.
- Create safe reporting systems. If people don’t feel secure calling out toxic behaviour, they’ll internalise it. And then take it home.
- Check the climate regularly. Anonymous surveys, real-time pulse checks help. Even better, check-in regularly with your team so you stay aware of how your people are actually doing and feeling.
- Model the culture from the top. Employees take their cues from leaders. If leadership tolerates or ignores toxic behaviour, everyone else will too.
A quiet call for change
No one’s suggesting that eliminating all stress is possible. Pressure, challenge, deadlines are part of working life.
But hostility, intimidation, repeated undermining? That’s different. That’s harm.
And perhaps it’s time to stop calling these incidents ‘difficult dynamics’ or ‘personality issues’. Let’s name them for what they are: cultural failures. Failures that don’t just disrupt meetings, they disrupt sleep, peace of mind, and sometimes entire households.
If nothing else, the UEA research reminds us that what happens in the workplace doesn’t stay there. In many cases, it walks right through the front door. Persistently. Night after night.
So as leaders, maybe the question isn’t, ‘Are we offering enough wellbeing benefits?’ but rather, ‘Are we causing harm without realising it?’
Because sleep matters. And so does what we bring home from work.
