We all know the feeling. You wake up Sunday morning and within a few minutes of consciousness, you remember what day it is, and suddenly the thought of burrowing back into your bed sounds like the only reasonable thing to do.

Sunday or Sunday night anxiety is nothing new. Research has shown that a large majority of us suffer from this depressing reality. Friday comes and we’re jumping for joy. “Happy Friday” has become a famous hashtag and an enthusiastic greeting. Saturday is well known as our universal day of freedom. But Sunday. Ohh Sunday. We just can’t seem to wrap our heads around liking it.

Sunday night anxiety is typically caused by the looming arrival of that other dreaded day of the week; Monday. Through most of our lives Monday was seen as the beginning of the week, which meant an end to our weekend and the start of another five days of work. At first it was school and now as adults, it’s our jobs. Even people who love their jobs tend to feel this way. So if it isn’t the actual job making us feel anxious, what is it?

Under Pressure
Maybe it’s the pressure. As humans, we sure are skilled at putting pressure on ourselves. We push ourselves to outperform and overwork, causing a lot of extra anxiety and a continuous pattern of thoughts that run through our minds uncontrollably. You’ve probably been there. You wake up in the middle of the night and before you have a chance to fall back asleep, your brain starts to wander. You start thinking about what tasks you have to complete the next day, how you will respond to that email your boss sent you, or how you can increase your profit margin.

This pressure feels particularly heavy on Sundays, when we’ve been out of the office for two days and it feels like an overload of work is waiting for us the next day. To compound these thoughts, most of us leave Sundays as our day of rest, where we laze around or maybe do house chores; and a brain that is not being distracted is susceptible to wandering thoughts.

Beating the Blues
We’ve found that the best way to combat Sunday night anxiety is to keep yourself busy on Sundays. Try switching up your weekend schedule a bit to see if it makes a difference. Move your chores and errands to Saturday, which should leave you time to finish them before the weekend is over, relieving some of the pressure of having to finish them in one day. Plan your outings on Sundays instead. Laying around and watching TV isn’t going to be good enough to distract you from those wandering thoughts, so get out and do something fun. Go hiking or for a bike ride with friends or join a club or team that meets on Sunday evenings. Keep your brain entertained so that is doesn’t have time to focus on what you need to do the next day.

Another trick that might help is to spend your Friday evening taking care of any work-related prepping for the following week, rather than doing this Sunday night. You are still in work-mode on Fridays so you will likely be able to accomplish this faster and more efficiently. Make a quick to-do list for the upcoming week and create a schedule for Monday to be sure you are prepared for the day’s tasks. Doing this can really help alleviate anxiety that you might feel on Sundays, since you can assure yourself that you are aware of what will be happening and ready to tackle it. If you really feel the need to review this schedule once more, do this on Sunday morning so that you can spend the rest of the day confident in your control over the workweek ahead.

Always keep in mind that Sunday isn’t “the end” of anything. It is likely that nothing bad will happen if certain things go unfinished on this day. Try to reframe your thinking of Sundays into a personal fulfillment day rather than a day of duty. The days of the week are never going to change, so try to change the way you view them. It’s just a constant cycle of life, so live one day at a time, enjoy that day as much as you can, and be thankful that it exists for you to cherish.

Do you have any tricks for beating Sunday night anxiety? We’d love to hear them! Leave a comment below explaining how you cope with your Sundays.