Every day at work employees are faced with resource depleting demands, necessitating recovery after work to avoid health and well-being detriments. Recovery theory and empirical results suggest that the four main recovery experiences that underlie employee recovery-psychological detachment, relaxation, mastery, and control-can occur concurrently. At the same time, each of these recovery experiences are dynamic and change across the evening. However, previous recovery research has not investigated and empirically examined both notions at the same time. Using a combined person-centered, dynamic approach across two experience sampling studies, we examine daily profiles of trajectories of all four recovery experiences across an entire evening after work. We also examine how daily job demands and resources relate to these profiles, and how profile membership relates to next-day work and well-being outcomes. Results revealed three profiles of recovery experience trajectory combinations that were predicted by job demands and resources. Results also revealed that having psychological detachment, relaxation, and control experiences early and often across the evening results in the most optimal daily recovery process for next-day well-being. This work represents an important stride forward as it is the first to examine how the recovery process unfolds, along with providing practical recommendations for how employees should best recover daily. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Grant et al. (2026) studied this question.