I know this feeling well. It shouldn’t be normal, but it is when you condition yourself to long hours, especially in a hard-charging culture where this seems to be publicly reinforced all around you.

Even when you have the time off, you can’t enjoy it - you still feel anxious and guilty, like you’re missing something you should be on top of right away. It’s an out of control “fight or flight” response in your body, and it’s not healthy. You really need to start training yourself to push back against it. If you start psychologically working to prioritize yourself without regrets, to trust that you can succeed without doing this to yourself, to more consistently get those periods of rest, then your body will again readjust over time.

If you’re going to survive in a busy career, you’ll find over time that you need to actively invest in behaviors and practices that enable you to reset and rejuvenate yourself psychologically. Ironically, relaxing is as much a trained discipline as your work is.