People who work from home have been advised to balance their professional and family responsibilities in order to avoid exhaustion.

Research led by Professor Timothy Golden from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY, found that people who work from home are not always more relaxed than those in the office.

In fact, the results found that stress levels varied depending on the workers' initial work and family conflicts and if these were high to start with, spending a lot of time working from home could push them up further.

Meanwhile, those who already had low levels of work and family conflict were found to suffer from less exhaustion when they worked from home during either traditional or non-traditional hours.

Professor Golden confirmed: “Whereas individuals may adopt telework as a means to enhance their quality of life and reduce exhaustion, those with low levels of conflict between work and family seem able to benefit more from telework than are those individuals who have high levels of conflict between their work and home..”

The findings have been published online in Springer's Journal of Business and Psychology and could prove interesting reading for those considering the emotional impact of working from home versus commuting to an office.