Are you already think­ing about tomor­row’s Mon­day today? With wor­ry, per­haps? Even with fear? If so, you’re not alone. But why do we dread Mon­day so much? And what can we do about it?

First­ly, let’s look at some num­bers. A British study by the Office for Health Improve­ment and Dis­par­i­ties found that 67 per­cent of all Britons are already afraid of Mon­day on Sun­days. In Feb­ru­ary, For­tune mag­a­zine report­ed that one in two man­agers are affect­ed by this fear, although not every week. And accord­ing to ABC’s «Good Morn­ing Amer­i­ca», the fear of Mon­days was at an all-time high in 2021, with 78 per­cent of mil­len­ni­als and Gen-Xers affected.

The phe­nom­e­non, known as the «Sun­day scaries» or some­times «Sun­day blues», was first men­tioned in the Urban Dic­tio­nary in 2009. And it’s far from triv­ial, as a look at its symp­toms reveals: a rac­ing heart rate, irri­tabil­i­ty, rest­less­ness, loom­ing neg­a­tive thoughts, upset stom­ach, headache, or sweat­ing. How­ev­er, it’s impor­tant to note that this is not a clin­i­cal diag­no­sis of an anx­i­ety dis­or­der. Inter­est­ing­ly, the Sun­day scaries also affect peo­ple who love their jobs. So it’s not just the unsat­is­fied who suf­fer from it.

Missing boundaries and unfinished tasks

The rea­sons behind it are var­ied. But it’s worth tak­ing a clos­er look because in many of these rea­sons lies a part of the solu­tion. Let’s delve deep­er into what can lead to the fear of Monday:

1. Research has shown that one of the trig­gers for the Sun­day scaries is the blur­ring of the bound­aries between work and pri­vate life. For exam­ple, emails that employ­ees often receive and read on week­ends can trig­ger pressure.
2. Anoth­er rea­son for the con­cern about Mon­day can be unfin­ished tasks from the pre­vi­ous week. Self-imposed pres­sure to per­form can play a cru­cial role here. But also, the uncer­tain­ty about how a par­tic­u­lar prob­lem can be solved can keep thoughts spinning.
3. Gen­der inequal­i­ty seems to result in women in lead­er­ship posi­tions being sig­nif­i­cant­ly more affect­ed by Sun­day scaries than men. While only four per­cent of male lead­ers report being afraid of Mon­day every week, it’s sev­en per­cent for women. This could be relat­ed to women more often car­ry­ing out care work, mak­ing the week­end and time out­side of work less rest­ful than for their male colleagues.
4. We often fail to antic­i­pate how quick­ly we will cope psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly with future events. This phe­nom­e­non, called «Affec­tive fore­cast­ing», has a huge impact of our vision of the future. Here­by we often dis­play an impact bias, over­es­ti­mat­ing the inten­si­ty and dura­tion of our emo­tion­al reac­tions to such events, which is is espe­cial­ly true when pre­dict­ing reac­tions to neg­a­tive events. Impact bias is part­ly attrib­uted to focal­ism, which is the incli­na­tion to under­val­ue how sig­nif­i­cant­ly con­cur­rent events can shape our emo­tions and thoughts. Addi­tion­al­ly, it’s also due to our inabil­i­ty to fore­see our own capac­i­ty to rapid­ly com­pre­hend and adapt to life events, a process which often facil­i­tates emo­tion­al recu­per­a­tion. This under­stand­ing of affec­tive fore­cast­ing and impact bias can offer a valu­able frame­work for inter­pret­ing phe­nom­e­na such as the Sun­day scaries, where our antic­i­pa­tion of the stress of the upcom­ing work week often out­strips the real­i­ty of the expe­ri­ence itself.

8 tipps to fight the Sunday scares

So what can we all do to avoid this unpleas­ant feel­ing on Sun­day and instead enjoy our week­end? Here are some tips that can help:

• Take a look back at the week on Fri­day and cre­ate a to-do list for the upcom­ing week. This helps get unfin­ished tasks out of your head. You can not only do this for your­self pri­vate­ly — teams can also col­lec­tive­ly reflect on the week and con­sid­er what would help them to start the week as rest­ed and effi­cient as pos­si­ble on Monday.
• If you know what helps you start the day well, sched­ule it for Mon­day morn­ing. Is it yoga? Cof­fee from your favorite barista? A spe­cial break­fast? It does­n’t have to be elab­o­rate, but if you start the week with such a feel-good moment, oth­er things will be eas­i­er for you.
• Addi­tion­al­ly, start Mon­day with as few unpleas­ant tasks and appoint­ments as pos­si­ble. Com­pa­nies, boss­es, and col­leagues can also pro­vide sup­port if every­one tries to keep the start of the week free from stress­ful issues; they help each oth­er in the process.
• A dig­i­tal detox over the week­end can also help to switch off. Work-relat­ed mes­sages and infor­ma­tion have no place in leisure time. How­ev­er, exces­sive con­sump­tion of news can also cause or inten­si­fy wor­ries, with fears about crises, infla­tion, or one’s own life being among the main trig­gers for the Sun­day scaries. Reduc­tion in this con­text can also reduce fear.
• Keep­ing a jour­nal can light­en the load on your mind. Doing a so-called «brain dump» before bed can help halt the swirl of thoughts in your head. Each evening before sleep, write down what’s trou­bling you, bur­den­ing you, or what you still need to tack­le — espe­cial­ly for Mon­day. A 2002 study by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton shows: jour­nal­ing is an effec­tive method to reduce stress and boost well-being.
• Devel­op a Sun­day rou­tine that rein­states your sense of con­trol. The Sun­day scaries are a feel­ing of los­ing con­trol, so coun­ter­act it. Pre­pare your Mon­day out­fit the night before, plan the week’s key activ­i­ties in advance or think about what you want to cook (or pre­pare meals in advance) and take care of impor­tant house­hold chores. To light­en things up, lis­ten to good music, drink a nice cof­fee or lis­ten to an enter­tain­ing pod­cast while iron­ing. Make it fun! In this way, you have fun while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly tack­ling chores that you won’t have to wor­ry about dur­ing the week.
• Plan some­thing enjoy­able for mid­week. Once half of the work­week is done and you’re already start­ing to look for­ward to the week­end, you can sched­ule a lit­tle break. A trip to the cin­e­ma, a bike ride, or a leisure­ly walk around the city after work can make the work­day more enjoy­able and take you out of your rou­tine. Plus, it gives you some­thing to look for­ward to on Sunday.
• Try to face the Sun­day scaries with med­i­ta­tion. These exer­cis­es are a proven means to calm the mind and con­front anx­i­eties and wor­ries. In addi­tion, med­i­ta­tion has a host of pos­i­tive effects. It clar­i­fies thoughts, improves sleep, and can sup­port those suf­fer­ing from depres­sion and anx­i­ety disorders.

Most of us suffer from Sunday scaries

Ulti­mate­ly, real­ize that you’re not alone. As the num­bers show, many peo­ple are at least occa­sion­al­ly affect­ed by the Sun­day scaries. There­fore, talk­ing about it is sure­ly a good method.

And if you do end up suc­cumb­ing to the Sun­day scaries, you can fol­low three steps sug­gest­ed by neu­ro­sci­en­tist Ste­fan Kölsch from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Bergen in Nor­way: Rec­og­nize, Decide, Con­cen­trate. «First, you need to rec­og­nize the neg­a­tive thoughts. Once you’ve done this, you can choose not to engage with them but instead focus your thoughts on some­thing use­ful or what you’re cur­rent­ly busy with. You can tell your neg­a­tive thoughts: ‹I unfor­tu­nate­ly don’t have time for you right now because I need to study for a test.› Then, you need to make sure to con­scious­ly hold onto the steer­ing wheel of your thoughts, for instance, by con­cen­trat­ing on your cur­rent task, even if it’s unpleas­ant to do, like prepar­ing your tax return. If we con­cen­trate on the task itself while doing our tax­es, step by step, leav­ing out the neg­a­tive thoughts and feel­ings, with­out stress and with­out irri­ta­tion, even prepar­ing a tax return can become a med­i­ta­tive exercise.»