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The Sunday Blues
It’s Saturday morning and you’re feeling pretty great. You’ve had a chance to sleep in. You’ve enjoyed your quiet, slow morning in which you can actually sip (and not throw back) your coffee. Maybe you even have a fun activity planned for the afternoon or evening with your friends, your family, or maybe your significant other.
But Sunday morning is a different story. The weekend is already a quickly receding memory, and your Monday is looming ahead – dark and scary as ever. You may be filled with dread and anxiety over what’s to come this week at work with impending deadlines, gossipy coworkers, difficult or stressful tasks, etc.
As the hours pass by and quickly approach the end of the day, your Sunday night anxiety kicks in and you just know that this is going to be a tough week ahead. You try to distract yourself, and maybe you even get out your work laptop to get ahead of your work week by checking emails. But try as you might, your Sunday anxiety is just getting worse, and you can’t help feeling down.
Feeling like this isn’t foreign for most of us, and while it may be a feeling that only occurs sometimes, for a lot of us, it’s an every weekend ordeal.
They’re called the Sunday blues for a reason, and they usually entail far more than just one day of the week. They can carry over into the Monday blues in which we feel ourselves dreading Monday morning, and the anxiety that comes along with it.
The Sunday blues are very much real, and they can have far-reaching consequences. From robbing us of enjoying our weekends, to impairing our productivity at work during the week, the Sunday night blues can quickly become a constant, vicious cycle that seemingly takes control of our lives.
Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be this way. There are several strategies you can utilize to overcome your Sunday sadness, and even make your Sundays pleasant again.
Learn how you can overcome your Sunday blues with these 7 tips, and finally take back your weekends.
How to Beat the Sunday Night Blues
1. Identify what’s triggering your Sunday night blues. It’s crucial that you take the time to identify what exactly is triggering your Sunday blues. Is it your long commute? Is your workload stressful? Do you work in a toxic environment? Bring awareness to what’s causing your Sunday sadness so that you can take active steps to either address or reduce their effects.
Related: 5 Ways to Protect Your Mental Health at the Office
2. Establish a relaxing, indulgent Sunday evening ritual. Have a Sunday evening activity you can actually look forward to every weekend. Maybe it’s a long bubble bath with a good book. Or maybe it’s making dinner with your family. Or maybe it’s a long walk with your significant other. Have a Sunday evening ritual you can look forward to for the entire week, and one that will help keep your Sunday night anxiety at bay.
3. Set up a fun mid-week activity. Dreading Monday morning and feeling anxious? Shift your focus away from your Monday fears and instead towards something you can look forward to either on Tuesday or Wednesday. It could be meeting up with a friend for lunch on Wednesday, or even grabbing after-work drinks with a group of friends on Tuesday. Have something that you can look forward to, and tweak your negative thought patterns to a more positive tone.
4. Don’t stay out late on Sunday night. Avoidance may seem like the way to go when it comes to dealing with Sunday night anxiety, but skimping on sleep will only exacerbate your anxiety come Monday morning. Make every effort to get a solid night’s sleep on Sunday. This way you’ll be able to deal with any anxiety or dread more effectively come Monday, while also keeping a clear head and perspective.
5. Plan out your next weekend with activities you can’t wait for. When there’s nothing to look forward to that’s on the immediate horizon, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and even consumed with the Sunday night blues. When you feel yourself dreading Monday morning, channel your nervous energy into productivity and start planning out your next weekend. Plan a brunch with friends for Sunday, or even a movie night with your partner for Sunday night. Your weekend plans don’t need to be jam packed – just a few activities that you can look forward to all week.
6. Don’t work on the weekends. Period. The more you find ways to work over the weekend – however small – the more anxious you’re going to feel about your upcoming work week. Just the smallest, seemingly harmless act of “checking in” on your laptop over the weekend can trigger feelings of anxiety for Monday. Do yourself the favor, and unplug over the weekend. Trust me, you’ll feel far more refreshed and ready to take on the week when you’ve given yourself the mental break you need from work.
Related: 6 Reasons Why You’re Mentally Burned Out
7. Keep your eyes open for new opportunities. If you’ve been utilizing these techniques for weeks, and even months without success, it’s likely there are far more problems with your job than you may realize. It may be that your toxic work environment just isn’t going to improve. Or that you may be working a dead-end job. Or that you don’t feel a greater purpose or sense of fulfillment in your job. If you suspect this is the case, start looking for new opportunities. No job is worth compromising your mental health, especially long-term.
