Now Germany is considering banning after-work emails

In our daily lives, interruptions are everywhere. People are working longer hours than ever before, taking less down time, and feeling the stress.

So it might come as no surprise that yet another progressive European country is considering pulling the plug on emails after work.

Germany - often heralded as the workhorse of Europe - is looking into the benefits of banning things like after-work emails to help employees manage their work-life balance better.

The move comes just months after France decided to mandate a 'no work emails after 6pm' policy.

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German labour minister, Andrea Nahles, has commissioned a study to look deeper into employee stress and the economic cost of having tired and overworked staff.

Germany's metalworkers' union has already proposed an "anti-stress act", which demands that employees should be protected from being contactable 24/7 via email and smartphones. The outcome of a study such as this could determine a whole new meaning to work-life balance for the German people.

"Noise can be measured in decibels, but with stress it is much harder to say what it actually is," a spokesperson told The Guardian. "So we are trying to establish a scientific foundation."

Nothing is to be officially proposed until the findings of the study are released in 2016.

"There is an undeniable relationship between constant availability and the increase of mental illness," Nahles told the Rheinische Post.

"We have commissioned the Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health to work out whether it is possible to set load thresholds. We need universal and legally binding criteria."

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