Sundays used to be a sacred space for employees, a place one could either spend sleeping, enjoying with family, or even taking care of one’s hobbies. They used to be slow, serene, and most important of all, away from anything related to ‘work’.
However, of late, employees have started feeling a kind of dread, a void that suddenly starts creeping in. Your thoughts suddenly start drifting into unread emails, early alarms, and meetings waiting patiently for the next morning. This peculiar feeling has a name: Sunday Scaries!
Sunday Scaries are not loud; instead, they start whispering within your mind. They turn rest and calm into anxiety. Even enjoyable Sunday activities like family lunches, long walks, or spending time with friends and family start feeling less enjoyable due to the weight of the upcoming work week.
At its core, Sunday scaries are a reminder of how closely our identities are tied to our work and job responsibilities. They start messing with our leisure time, like Sundays, when work-life balance starts feeling fragile. And when one aspect of life starts trickling into the other, you start feeling anxious and afraid of the week ahead.
The solution to this dilemma is neither fighting Sundays nor rushing through them. It is to reclaim them gently. To start countering the effects of Sunday scaries, start by planning the week lightly and closing any open loops. In most cases, simply acknowledging the feeling of anxiety is enough to reduce its effects.
Hence, if you dread the feeling of Sunday scaries, you can start by setting clear boundaries between work and life. Try to start living in the moment, trying to avoid any thoughts about Monday. Once you start doing that, Sundays will become less dreadful and more of a pause, helping you regain the lost sense of purpose of Sundays.
