{"id":8577,"date":"2025-06-23T17:43:12","date_gmt":"2025-06-23T17:43:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/8577\/"},"modified":"2025-06-23T17:43:12","modified_gmt":"2025-06-23T17:43:12","slug":"dealing-with-the-sunday-scaries-heres-how-to-address-your-anxiety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/8577\/","title":{"rendered":"Dealing with the Sunday scaries? Here\u2019s how to address your anxiety"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anxiety is a normal human emotion many people feel in anticipation of what\u2019s to come, such as the work week, experts said. Sunday scaries is \u201ca lovely alliteration for something that people have been feeling for generations\u201d, said Kathleen M. Pike, a professor of psychology at Columbia University\u2019s Mailman School of Public Health and the chief executive of One Mind, a nonprofit that funds research on mental health care and workplace wellness.<\/p>\n

Not everyone has Sunday scaries, but anxious people identify with the feeling, said Judson Brewer, a professor at Brown University\u2019s School of Public Health and the author of the book Unwinding Anxiety. The term becomes part of a person\u2019s lexicon, and videos on social media amplify the message and reinforce their perception, he said.<\/p>\n

Redmond has mixed feelings about the millions of views for her TikTok video. She said that it\u2019s nice to know so many people feel the same way and that it helps to laugh about it together, but that \u201cit\u2019s also kind of sad\u201d.<\/p>\n

AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI do feel kind of stuck. And I feel like a lot of people feel that way. Especially in their mid- to late-20s,\u201d Redmond said. \u201cYou feel like you\u2019re getting older. You feel like you\u2019re running out of time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why do people feel the Sunday scaries?<\/p>\n

A person can feel anxious on a Sunday for two reasons, said Jack Nitschke, a psychologist and neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. You\u2019re anticipating plans for the upcoming week, and the future is inherently uncertain.<\/p>\n

Discover more<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s exactly the same thing that\u2019s driving morning anxiety<\/a>,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s the anticipation of what lies ahead in the day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Erik Davies, a 35-year-old resident physician in Cleveland, said he had a sense of dread returning to work on Monday after a week on holiday in North Carolina.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just knew when I open my email, or step back into the clinic, my email will be blowing up,\u201d he said. \u201cAnticipating that on Monday was really getting to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Morra Aarons-Mele, host of the podcast The Anxious Achiever, said our jobs and managers hold an overwhelming power over our mental health. Earlier in her career, she said, her Sunday anxiety got so bad her husband suggested she quit.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really overtook my life. It\u2019s visceral,\u201d Aarons-Mele said. \u201cSunday scaries is a cute name, but the feeling isn\u2019t cute.\u201d<\/p>\n

Everybody feels anxiety; it\u2019s \u201can ancient emotion\u201d, Aarons-Mele said. And it\u2019s common to feel anxious about your job. Our jobs provide our well-being, livelihood and purpose in society, she said. Looming layoffs, or other signs of economic uncertainty, can create uncertainty and lead us to feel anxious about the future.<\/p>\n

AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cOf course you\u2019re anxious. How could you not be?\u201d she said. \u201cThe headlines are terrifying.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is \u201ctotally appropriate\u201d to feel anxious the Sunday before your first day on a job or the night before a big presentation, Aarons-Mele said. You\u2019re going to feel anxious when you\u2019re challenging yourself. But if you feel anxious every Sunday, or before every check-in with a manager, that\u2019s a feeling to investigate further, perhaps with a therapist.<\/p>\n

Recognise how anxiety makes you feel, Aarons-Mele said. What are the signs that you\u2019re anxious? And at what points in time do you feel anxious?<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there\u2019s one person at your job who is triggering all that anxiety, that\u2019s really important to know,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

How to manage your anxiety on Sunday<\/p>\n

Try to reframe how you think of your Sunday. The term Sunday scaries frames the day through \u201canxiety-colored glasses\u201d, Brewer said. However, Sunday is neither good nor bad – and people have control over how they perceive the day, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe part that we don\u2019t have control over is the fact that Sunday turns into Monday,\u201d Brewer said. \u201cBut what we do have control over is how we relate to that, or how we view that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before dinner on Sunday, sit down and rehearse the week, Aarons-Mele said. Include your partner or kids, if you want. People are often anxious when they feel a loss of control, she said. Go day by day through your responsibilities at home and work. Planning minimises uncertainty and helps you identify what\u2019s within your control.<\/p>\n

When you start to feel overwhelmed during the week, write down \u201ca very detailed to-do list\u201d, Aarons-Mele said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an old cognitive behavioural therapy tool, but it really works,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s about being really, really granular and accounting for your time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keep track of all the good things that happen on Monday and Tuesday. For two months, document the positive feedback you get at work, or the enjoyable moments spent catching up with co-workers, Nitschke said. Test whether there\u2019s any merit to your Sunday anxiety.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s often a lot of good things that happen on Monday and Tuesday, and yet we\u2019re spending all this time on Sunday having Sunday scaries,\u201d Nitschke said. \u201cAs is often the case with anxiety and worry, we\u2019re fabricating a future that\u2019s miserable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elizabeth Pearson, a 28-year-old supply chain manager who lives in Chicago, said that when she starts to spiral into a loop of anxiety, she falls back on a list of simple activities she does to feel grounded, such as calling her mum or walking her dog.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really easy to get wrapped up in all that worry about the future,\u201d Pearson said. \u201cYou\u2019re spiralling so much that you\u2019re not able to exist in your body, in this moment.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anxiety is a normal human emotion many people feel in anticipation of what\u2019s to come, such as the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":8578,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[9810,1736,9807,9815,9817,9819,210,9809,3861,9818,9814,517,9808,9813,1404,9816,448,447,67,132,68,2452,1917,9811,9812],"class_list":{"0":"post-8577","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-address","9":"tag-anxiety","10":"tag-dealing","11":"tag-every","12":"tag-feeling","13":"tag-further","14":"tag-health","15":"tag-heres","16":"tag-how","17":"tag-investigate","18":"tag-loop","19":"tag-mental-health","20":"tag-scaries","21":"tag-stuck","22":"tag-sunday","23":"tag-thats","24":"tag-the","25":"tag-to","26":"tag-united-states","27":"tag-unitedstates","28":"tag-us","29":"tag-week","30":"tag-with","31":"tag-your","32":"tag-youre"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114733921695198717","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}