magazine issue 1 2026

Between excellence and well-being: The case of academia

• written by Silvia Filippi & Caterina Suitner

Editorial Assistants: Elisabeth Höhne and Elena Benini.

Note: An earlier version of this article has been published in the Italian version of In-Mind.

Loving your work can be both a privilege and a trap. In academia and beyond, passion and flexibility often turn into pressure and overwork. This article examines the hidden costs of excellence and offers ten science-based strategies to reclaim time, balance, and well-being.

Fig. 1

“So, what do you do for a living?”
“I’m a researcher, at the university.”
“Wow!”
Some professions, especially those that are autonomous, creative, and intellectual, carry an aura of prestige. Yet this social recognition often comes at a cost because behind the apparent flexibility of such jobs lies a heavy time burden, with significant consequences for personal well-being [1]. Academia is a perfect example. It fosters autonomy, creativity, and a sense of purpose, but also demands excellence, productivity, and constant availability. Achieving a sustainable balance between work and personal life in such a context is far from easy, and the challenge is not limited to universities. It reflects a broader cultural pattern affecting many modern workplaces where passion and flexibility intertwine with pressure and overcommitment.

When Passion Turns into Pressure

Work-life balance occurs when people feel capable of managing work and personal life harmoniously, experiencing satisfaction in both domains while maintaining health and well-being [2]. It might seem paradoxical that achieving balance is so difficult in environments characterized by autonomy and passion – qualities that should, in principle, protect against stress. Yet these characteristics can become risk factors. Research shows that passion for one’s work, technically known as engagement, is associated with difficulty setting limits. Those who love what they do tend to overcommit, take on too many projects, and find it hard to say no, resulting in long working hours, blurred boundaries, and an inability to disconnect [3]. If you can work anywhere and anytime, you may end up working everywhere and all the time.
In many intellectual and creative professions, the pursuit of excellence has become the ultimate goal. The term itself is both inspiring and deceptive, evoking merit and quality but often hiding structural inequalities and unrealistic expectations. In academia, excellence is the yardstick of success, used to evaluate careers, publications, and funding applications. Yet this constant striving for perfection can easily turn into a trap. As Hartmut Rosa argues, the cult of excellence is a form of social acceleration driven by neoliberal ideals of performance and competition, pushing individuals toward endless self-optimization and making them feel that whatever they achieve is never enough [4].
Academic work is also extremely multifaceted, encompassing teaching, supervision, research, administrative duties, and dissemination. Academics are expected to publish in prestigious journals, attend conferences, write competitive grant proposals, build international collaborations, and engage in public outreach. Many of these responsibilities spill over into evenings and weekends, and the variety and constant pressure to perform often lead to exhaustion. While such demands might seem unique to academia, they mirror broader tendencies in other knowledge-based professions – from technology to consulting – where flexibility is celebrated but rarely regulated. In all these contexts, the line between work and life has become increasingly blurred.
Moreover, in contemporary culture, time itself has become a status symbol. Spending long hours at work is often seen as a sign of dedication and importance, even when it comes at the expense of health and relationships [5]. As philosopher Pascal Chabot observed, modern society has become obsessed with schedules, deadlines, and meetings, to the point that we seem to measure everything by the clock while losing any genuine sense of time itself. In this “hyper-time,” as he calls it, we adapt constantly to urgency, yet rarely experience duration, presence, or rest [6].
Fig. 2
The psychological consequences of this culture are increasingly visible. Comparing the quality of work-life between academics and non-academics, Fontinha and colleagues found that academics report lower levels of well-being and higher levels of overwork, partly due to the hypercompetitive and individualistic nature of their environment [7]. This effect is particularly pronounced among early-career researchers, who often face precarious contracts and uncertain career prospects. Fear of professional stagnation or invisibility drives many to accept unsustainable workloads, and the data are alarming. PhD candidates are six times more likely to experience anxiety and depression than the general population [8], [9], and the combination of passion, insecurity, and isolation can easily lead to burnout [10]. Even when universities introduce formal policies to support work-life balance, their effectiveness remains limited. Cannizzo and colleagues found that young researchers rarely make use of such measures, partly because academic culture glorifies overwork and frames rest as laziness or moral weakness [11].
How often do we answer “I’m tired” when someone asks how we are? How often do we return from holidays only to boast about how we kept working? These stories, shared in hallways and online, reinforce unhealthy norms that erode collective well-being. Social comparison and competition, both deeply embedded in academic life, further exacerbate the problem. When success is measured by publications, citations, and visibility, people tend to sacrifice leisure, relationships, and even health to keep up. These are not merely personal choices but the predictable outcomes of a system that equates worth with productivity [12].

Personality, Gender, and the Unequal Strain of Work

Not everyone experiences these pressures in the same way. Personality traits and gender roles strongly influence one’s ability to maintain balance. According to the Big Five model, people who are more agreeable, conscientious, and open to experience tend to manage competing demands more effectively [13]. These traits encourage empathy, organization, and flexibility, helping individuals cope with stress. Gender, however, introduces another layer of inequality. Studies show that women experience greater work-life conflict, largely because traditional norms still assign them primary responsibility for caregiving [14], [15]. Flexibility at work can be an opportunity for men but a challenge for women [16]. During the COVID-19 pandemic, this asymmetry became especially visible. Remote work further blurred the line between home and office, and while men’s academic productivity increased, women’s academic productivity declined [17]. Far from being a great equalizer, telework deepened gender gaps and further confirmed that professional success is easier to sustain for those free from domestic burdens. The pursuit of balance in academia, therefore, not only reveals but sometimes amplifies structural inequalities, confirming that the academic world, traditionally a male domain, continues to reward those able (or expected) to prioritize work above all else.
When burnout eventually appears, individuals often blame themselves for lacking resilience or discipline, but this perspective ignores the structural dimension of overwork. As Martin and Stanfill point out, both external pressures, such as competition for funding and job insecurity, and internal motivations, such as perfectionism and overcommitment, converge to produce exhaustion [18]. Achieving balance cannot depend solely on personal coping strategies; it requires a cultural shift that redefines success, values collective well-being, and recognizes rest as an essential component of productivity.
Fig. 3

Ten Evidence-Based Strategies for Healthier Work

Empirical research offers several useful insights into how individuals and organizations can promote healthier ways of working. The following ten strategies, inspired by recent studies, provide a roadmap for achieving greater harmony between work and life. They are not meant to be exhaustive, but rather to offer a starting point: a set of practical, research-based ideas that can help rethink our relationship with work and well-being.

1. Slow down

Overwork is not a badge of honor but a risk factor for errors, stress, and serious mental health problems, including depression and suicidal ideation [19], [20]. Reducing working hours allows people to reclaim time as a human right and to restore balance between professional and personal life [21]. Working less does not mean caring less; it means working more thoughtfully, with quality rather than quantity as the measure of success.

2. Manage flexibility intentionally

Freedom without boundaries quickly becomes chaos. Being able to work anywhere does not mean working everywhere. Establishing temporal and spatial limits, such as fixed working hours or a clear end to the day, helps prevent constant connectivity and promotes recovery [22].

3. Learn to say no

Intellectual curiosity can be endless, but human energy is not. Accepting too many projects often leads to inefficiency and dissatisfaction, whereas clearly defining one’s priorities helps sustain focus and quality [23], [24]. Saying no isn’t selfish; it is strategic.
Fig. 4

4. Set meaningful yet realistic goals

To refuse effectively, one must first know what truly matters. Unrealistic objectives create frustration and procrastination, while clear short- and long-term goals preserve direction and motivation [25]. Working by priority rather than by urgency allows for greater clarity and purpose.

5. Collaborate instead of competing

Competition can sharpen our skills, but it rarely sustains motivation or well-being. What truly endures is cooperation: collaboration fosters creativity and resilience, strengthening both relationships and results. Neuroscientific studies show that working collaboratively activates brain regions related to reward and social bonding [26]. As Nobel laureate Richard Roberts once said, collaboration is absolutely the key.

6. Build supportive relationships

Whether vertical, such as between supervisor and student, or horizontal, such as among colleagues, social support strengthens satisfaction and resilience [27]. In environments obsessed with individual performance, community remains one of the most powerful buffers against stress.

7. Promote shared decision-making

Research on organizational decentralization indicates that employees who perceive decision-making as shared report higher well-being and engagement [28]. Academic teams provide fertile ground for such egalitarian models. Autonomy and teamwork, two factors closely tied to decentralization, are key protective factors against burnout [29]

8. Take real breaks

Despite evidence that human attention is limited [30], many people still feel guilty about resting. Yet mental pauses are vital for creativity and insight. Periods of apparent idleness allow the brain to form novel connections [31]. The Romans called this otium: not simply the absence of work, but the generative space from which new ideas arise.

9. Prioritize well-being over productivity

The “happy worker, productive worker” hypothesis [32] is now well supported by research. Focusing on health, social relationships, and satisfaction does not detract from productivity; it sustains it. Well-being is not an alternative to performance but its foundation.

10. Create a culture of balance

Finally, individual strategies must be supported by collective change. Organizations that cultivate a culture where engagement and rest coexist benefit both employees and the wider community [33]. Structures that promote flexibility, equality, and time off may lead to healthier, more motivated teams, with positive effects that extend beyond the workplace into families and society.
The academic world often celebrates those who “go the extra mile,” forgetting that the extra mile has a cost. Sustainable excellence requires redefining success, not as constant productivity but as meaningful collective contribution. Achieving balance does not mean caring less about one’s work but caring more about one’s life. It means understanding that a rested mind is more creative, that collaboration is more valuable than competition, and that time is not a commodity to be spent but a space to be lived in.
Perhaps our new motto should be simple: “Work less and together to work better.” Only by embracing this idea can we build universities (and workplaces more broadly) that are humane, sustainable, and truly fulfilling: places where passion for knowledge coexists with the time to live.

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Figure sources

FIGURE 1 SOURCE: https://unsplash.com/it/s/foto/stop-work
FIGURE 2 SOURCE: https://unsplash.com/it/s/foto/stop-work
FIGURE 3 SOURCE: https://unsplash.com/it/s/foto/stop-work
FIGURE 4 SOURCE: https://unsplash.com/it/s/foto/stop-work