Have You Heard of the Sunday Scaries?

It’s Sunday morning, and you’re stressed. Your mind is racing. All you can think about are work deadlines and the things you’ll have to do on Monday. You had a relaxing Friday night and Saturday, so what’s going on? Is there something wrong with you?

Nope. This phenomenon, known as the “Sunday Scaries,” is incredibly common. In 2018, LinkedIn held a survey asking participants if they worried about the week ahead on Sundays. Eighty percent of respondents said they had. If you’re not sure how to cope, check out our tips below and reclaim your Sundays!

  1. Prep on Friday

Sunday freak-outs are common because we want to mentally prepare for the coming week. Projects we have to do, deadlines to meet, etc. One way to avoid this is by setting up a “next week’s checklist” on Friday before you leave work. Outline everything you need to do the following week before the weekend starts, and you won’t have to worry as much on Sunday.

  1. Make Sunday the Fun Day

Working during the week is tough, so it’s understandable if you want to spend Saturday relaxing. But that means you’ll have household chores and errands to run on Sunday, on top of fretting about the coming work week. Consider shifting the bulk of these tasks to Saturday. That way you can free up Sunday to have some fun.

  1. Working from Home? Don’t Work from Bed.

Your bed is safe and warm, and if you’re working from home, it’s tempting to do all your work in bed. However, when we work from bed, we’re telling our brains that it’s a place to work, not sleep.

As noted by behavioral sleep medicine therapist Annie Miller in an interview with Healthline, “When we use our bed for other activities, like working, reading, watching TV, etc., we create an association with wakefulness. We want the bed to be a cue for sleep, and working in bed weakens this association.”

This makes it even more difficult to get to sleep on Sunday nights. Choose a space in your home dedicated to work and save the bed for sleep.

  1. Write Everything Down

If your brain won’t stop buzzing with stressful thoughts of how you’re not going to get things done, take those buzzy thoughts and write them all down. Everything from needing to call your parents and stocking your fridge to doing laundry and playing sports with the kids. It’s much easier to manage your anxiety when you see it all written down on the page in front of you. And tasks are simpler to tackle when you’ve already identified them.

Have you dealt with the Sunday scaries? Let us know in the comments section below!

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