Tips for Dealing with Sunday & Monday Blues

[Daniel E.]

5 Tips for Dealing with the Sunday Blues
by Stephie Moulton Sarkis PhD

For many people, Sunday can be a rough day. This is especially true if you have been through a loss. Here are 5 ways to make your Sunday go a little easier.

1. Have a schedule.
Part of having the Sunday blues is that it’s one of the days of the week that doesn’t really have any structure. You just kind of free-float through Sunday. Make yourself a schedule the day before. Schedule your entire day – from the time you get up until when you go to bed. This includes scheduling exercise and meals, two things that can fall to the wayside when you aren’t feeling well.

2. Get moving.
Get outside and exercise. If it’s too cold, exercise anyway. Studies have shown that exercise raises the amount of the brain chemical dopamine. Increased dopamine can help improve your mood. If the word “exercise” is a turn-off for you, keep in mind that any activity, even going for a short walk, counts as exercise.

3. Be around people.
If you are feeling lousy, interacting with people may be the last thing you want to do. However, even just being around other people can help your mood. Attend your place of worship, community gathering, or any other location where you will be around people. Interacting is optional, but it will help you feel better.

4. Volunteer your time.
Find a cause you are interested, and give your time and energy. There are organizations that operate on Sundays that could use your help, especially now due to budget cuts. By giving back to something that is larger than yourself, you are doing both that organization and you a favor.

5. Let yourself feel.
When you are grieving, you go through a dizzying blur of emotions. You may feel sadness, relief, anger, and denial all through the course of a day. Just roll with it. Stop yourself from judging what feelings you should or shouldn’t have, and just feel them.

A book I recommend is “How to Survive the Loss of a Love” by Colgrove, Bloomfield, and McWilliams. This book is helpful to anyone experiencing grief.

Dr. Sarkis is the author of several books on ADD, including 10 Simple Solutions to Adult ADD.

 

[Daniel E.]

Monday Blues

Five Tips for Improving Monday Mornings
by Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project

One happiness-project exercise I undertook was to consider the different times of day, and days of the week, to see if any particular dayparts were happiness challenges. In my case, I realized that school mornings were no fun, and I took several steps to make school-day mornings more calm and cheery.

Another common problem time? Monday morning -- or rather, the Monday-morning mood, which can strike at any time of the week. Even when you love your job, and especially if you don’t love your job, it can be hard to go back to work on Monday morning. After a few days out of the routine, it can feel jarring and overwhelming to jump back into the workday world. If you take care of kids full time, Mondays can feel easier – or not, depending on what your days are like.

I’ve talked to several people about how they deal with Mondays. Their different answers illustrate a common point: the importance of self-awareness. If you’re aware of the fact that certain times of day, or days of the week, pose a particular happiness challenge, and why, you can take steps to improve them. When do you feel like buckling down? When do you feel like goofing off? Pay attention to your idiosyncratic rhythms.

1. Avoid getting the bends, I. One friend used to hate the frantic rush of Monday mornings, so now she doesn’t try to do any “real work” until after lunch on Monday. She eases into the work week by checking email, reading professional email newsletters, and doing more substantial tasks IF she feels like it, but doesn’t consider herself “at work” until 1:30 p.m. The result? She gets about as much done as she did before – she just feels less pressure.

2. Avoid getting the bends, II. Another friend has a job where he’s deluged with crises from the first minute he walks in the door. By Tuesday, he’s used to the atmosphere again, but on Monday, he feels overwhelmed by it. So for Monday mornings, he found an obscure room at his workplace where he can have a cup of coffee, undisturbed, and adjust to work life again.

3. Look forward to something. One of my former roommates has always suffered from the Sunday Blues. Now she deals with it by making sure she has something to look forward to on Monday: she schedules lunch with a friend, excuses herself from some daily task that she doesn’t enjoy, or figures out some other way to improve the day. Once Monday morning actually comes, she’s always fine – she just suffers from dread on Sunday. Having something pleasant to anticipate lessens the feeling.

4. Set your own priorities. Another friend gets to work at 8:00 a.m. but doesn’t “react” to anything until 10:00.m.—on Monday or any other day. For the first two hours of work, he works only on tasks that he’s set himself. By not answering email, returning phone calls, or working on someone else’s request until 10:00, he takes care of his own priorities first. I would never be able to postpone checking my email for the first two hours at my desk, but I understand why it works for him.

5. Make the most of the morning. Speaking of mornings, studies show that the brain is often better able to tackle cognitive tasks before noon, so Monday morning, when you’re also fresh from the weekend, may be a great time to tackle a challenging task. This is an issue for me right now. I definitely do my best thinking early in the day, but it’s also the most convenient time for me to go to the gym (my gym is in the same building where my younger daughter goes to nursery school, so after I drop her off in the morning, I’m right there). I hate to miss using this valuable brain time, but if I don’t exercise in that slot, I’m much more apt to miss it altogether. I still haven’t figured out how to balance these considerations.

6. Shuffle the schedule. Maybe something is making Mondays unnecessarily tough. Could you suggest moving the weekly meeting from Monday morning to Wednesday morning, so you don’t feel like you’re starting your week by sitting in a long meeting? Could a report be due on Tuesday, instead of Monday, to give you a little cushion?

7. Find some fun. If you really don’t feel like coming to work on Monday morning, can you think of some workplace ritual – that just involves you, or even better, involves some co-workers – to make re-entry more fun? A little bit of fun can make a big difference to making an unpleasant situation more bearable. I once ate at a diner where the wait staff kept a chalkboard where they wrote the names of movies they’d seen, with their brief reviews. “Excellent.” “Worthless.” “Boring but my boyfriend loved it.” This sounds like a small thing, but it looked like they got a big kick out of it.

8. Roll with it. The change I’ve made in my approach to my Monday morning is – don’t expect to have a regular schedule. I love routine and predictability, but the way my life is right now, every day is different. For a while, that made me felt frustrated and inefficient. Now I’m trying to embrace and enjoy it.

Because I’ve always had an officey-sort of job, these tips are best suited for people who work in an office. If you have a non-office job, what tips would you offer for coping with Monday morning -- or the Monday-morning mood?

 

[Cat Dancer]

These are good tips for dealing with depression in general.

 

[David Baxter PhD]

I'm waiting for "Tips for Dealing with Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday".

 

[Daniel E.]

Maybe I'll start a whole blog on Wednesday morning blues

Then the researchers examined the happiness factors associated with each day of the week, finding that Wednesday was the saddest day, whereas Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday were the happiest days--and especially Saturday. Similar analyses for the time of day showed that early morning hours (7:00 AM - 9:00 AM) were particularly sad, whereas the evening hours were particularly happy, increasingly so up to 10:00 PM. There was also a happiness factor peak at 2:00 - 4:00 AM, which the researchers speculated was due to many of the blog writers at this site being night people.

Happy Days and Happy Times | Psychology Today

 

[Daniel E.]

How to Cure the Monday Morning Blues
By Gian Fiero

It's Monday morning. In any office, in any given city, you can find an ample amount of people who are suffering from that dreaded condition called "Monday Morning Blues."

The exact origin of this condition is unclear. Does is it start the moment we open our eyes on Monday morning? Or does it slowly rise up as night falls on Sunday? More importantly, how do we cure it? This article will offer some solutions and tips on how to cure your Monday Morning Blues so that you can become a more productive and happier worker.

1. CHANGE YOUR MINDSET
Professor Charles Areni conducted research lead by a team of psychologists from the University of Sydney who collected mood information from hundreds of people, asking them for their worst and best morning and evening of the week and had this to say about the Monday Morning Blues:

"The Monday morning blues and 'Thank God it's Friday attitude' are largely inaccurate theories of how moods vary when they actually don't," he reported in News.com.au. "Mondays are not actually blue at all, but we persist in the belief that they are." Areni added.

In offices all around America, people approach Monday with the mindset of "getting through" the week. In that scenario, Monday becomes the first stepping stone in an uphill battle. If you hold that perspective, then you inevitably begin your week feeling down. Sure there is work that is awaiting you - some of which you may not be looking forward to; projects that need to be completed; assignments that you dread; and co-workers that you don't like. By focusing on what you want to accomplish in the upcoming week instead of merely getting through it, your mindset will inevitably change.

2. ADDRESS YOUR BASIC NEEDS
Professor Areni's research indicates that the real low point of the week was Wednesday ("aka" hump day), not Monday, and that mood change and attitude was only slight for other days. He said the day-of-the-week stereotypes stemmed from a cultural belief that people were generally happier when they were free to choose their activities compared to when they were sitting at a desk.

My research indicates that those who are less susceptible to the Monday Morning Blues are those who have jobs which fulfill their most basic work needs which are: autonomy, the need for competency, and the need for relatedness. Seeking more freedom in your job and being empowered with the ability to make choices regarding how your work is done, is a major component to job satisfaction. Feeling good about doing your job to the best of your ability is also key. Finally, finding people who can relate to you and your work challenges is crucial and underestimated. If there is no one within your organization who fits this description, befriend someone similar at a neighboring company who does.

3. GET OVER HUMP DAY - LITERALLY
"Monday morning is remembered and predicted to be the worst part of the week because it is the first work day after two days of free time, and because four work days follow before the next period of free time," he said. "Likewise, Friday evening is the best part of the week because it marks the beginning of an extended period of free time, he added.

It sounds obvious, but on a subconscious level, this thinking undermines and disrupts our focus and ability to be "in the now". It would make sense that Wednesday is referred to as "hump day" since most workers, as previously stated, are merely trying to get through the week or climb some long, steep, imaginary hill that they long to "get over". Hump day symbolizes the peak at which point the climb gets easier because in theory, it's all downhill from there. When you effectively focus on reaching goals for the week, you will find that hump day all but disappears when you are humping your butt off while trying to accomplish your goals.

4. MAXIMIZE YOUR WEEKEND DURING THE WEEK
Most people dread Sundays because they know that Monday is just around the corner. This leaves Saturday as the only true weekend day. Recent surveys confirm this. A whopping 72 per cent of those polled spend up to four hours doing chores on a Sunday, which includes 31 per cent attempting to get through the laundry, 24 per cent cleaning the kitchen and 14 per cent changing the bed.

Not only is this counterproductive in terms of preventing the Monday Morning Blues, but it also decreases weekend enjoyment. By executing mundane household chores during the week, you free up valuable weekend time which can be spent in a more productive or leisurely fashion - right up until Sunday night.

4. SLEEP LESS, PLAY MORE
A new study has found that lazy Saturday and Sunday lie-ins can disturb your body clock, leaving you fatigued at the start of the week. Flinders University sleep expert Leon Lack said people often used the weekend to catch up on sleep lost during the week. He notes: "We've discovered that these sleep-ins are actually putting your body out of whack enough to change your Sunday night bedtime and set you up for Monday blues," Professor Lack told AAP.

His research team tested the theory by tracking 16 people over a weekend, asking them to go to bed a little later than they would on a weeknight but sleeping-in an extra two hours. By comparing saliva samples and hormone tests he found participants' body clocks had been delayed by 45 minutes.

"That might not sound like a lot but it means that you're not quite as sleepy on Sunday night at the normal bedtime and you'll be much sleepier the next day," Prof Lack said. Questionnaires completed on Monday and Tuesday showed much higher levels of self-reported fatigue and tiredness compared with pre-sleep in days. This was because the subjects' circadian rhythms - which determine patterns of alertness and tiredness - had been disturbed, creating an effect similar to jet lag. By mid-week (hump day) most people manage to get back on track but then they start staying up later, getting into "debt" once again and perpetuating the cycle.

If the weekend is a time to play, get up early and do it. You will keep your body's clock attuned to your "normal" wake-up time, and get the maximum use of your minimal free time.

5. BALANCE OUT YOUR MONDAYS
If you ride public transportation you know that it's a much less gregarious atmosphere on your train, bus, or carpool on Mondays. People don't engage in conversation as readily as they do on Fridays. It's no surprise that people smile less on Mondays than they do on Fridays. We all know that smiles invite friendliness or at least friendly interactions.

Put an activity on your Monday schedule (yes, regardless of how hectic your Mondays are) that will afford you the opportunity for some friendly interaction. Whether it's having lunch with a friend, making a donation of some kind, or sending a personal email to say hello to someone - do something that balances your work demands against your personal needs to give you something to look forward to at the beginning of the week.

Using these tips should make your Mondays a little brighter, and a little more enjoyable.