Feeling Sunday night stress? This will help
Around Wednesday, you secretly long for the weekend. No more boss chirping about what you still have to do, just two long days for yourself. Delightful. Until you start feeling some unrest in your stomach on Sunday afternoon, because: tomorrow you have to work again. Recognizable? Then you might have Sunday evening stress.
It depends a bit on my appointments for that week and whether I have my shit (pardon my French) in order. Last Sunday evening, I really flipped out because I had both extra (new) assignments to do that week and a pretty important training to prepare. And oh yes, the registration for the sale of my house was also closing. So I was hyperventilating on Sunday evening with a diminishing hangover over my laptop. All factors that you can't really use when you want to tackle that Sunday evening stress.
A little test. Do you feel the same every day of the week? Is Tuesday morning just before that meeting the same as Friday afternoon just after lunch? There's a good chance you're saying ‘no’ now. The funny thing is that your work doesn't change, but you are the determining factor that makes a workday different. Scientific research shows that we homo sapiens feel different on each day of the week. There is a fundamental difference in our mood on Monday morning and Thursday afternoon. And as a result, you also react differently to, for example, your manager's feedback. What you can handle fine on Thursday might feel like a slap in the face on Monday.
On the weekend, you are generally a bit more positive. The feeling of not having to do anything and being able to decide everything for yourself makes us more optimistic. Losing that freedom again on Monday makes us a bit upset on Sunday evening. And do you sleep in nicely after that evening when you polished off a bottle of white wine? That's not good for the Sunday evening stress either. Letting go of your weekday rhythm makes you dread picking up your routine again on Monday.
But how do you get rid of that Sunday evening stress or better yet, how do you prevent it? With some simple tricks.
1. Take a moment just before the Friday afternoon drinks to plan your Monday morning. Yes, the drinks are tempting, but you start a workweek much more calmly if you know what you have to do. This way, your workweek won't overwhelm you and you can oversee everything.
2. Sunday is often a huge lounging day, but it helps if you give that day a bit more structure. Go eat at someone's place, take a long walk as a standard, or go exercise (?). Did I just advise you to go exercise on Sunday evening? I don't know what came over me.
3. Finally: make Monday nicer. If you arrange this day a bit more pleasantly for yourself by always having lunch with a friend or enjoying dinner with family in the evening, you'll get a different association with that day. A massage or yoga class also works, by the way.
Source: NRC
