Most of us probably aren’t that wild about heading back to work on Monday — but if you also kind of dread Sunday, you’re not alone. There’s no clinical diagnosis for it, but believe it or not, there is a reason we suffer from what’s often referred to as the Sunday Fear, the Sunday Scaries, the Sunday Sads, or the Sunday Weirds. Business Insider just posted a neat-o little video that explains the whole thing — and what we can do about it. How thoughtful!
For those of you who can’t watch videos at work, here’s the whole thing in a nutshell: The Sunday Sads are really something called Dimanchophobia, “Dimanche” being the French word for Sunday (high school French powers: Activate!). It’s an anxiety that rears its ugly little head when we start to transition from unstructured time — e.g., the weekend — back to structured time — or, the work week. Symptoms include irritability, upset stomachs, headaches, and sleep disturbance. I’m a pretty restless sleeper, but this might explain why Sunday nights are always the worst for me. The more you know, right?
Luckily, though, there are a few simple things we can do to combat the Sunday Sads:
- Don’t go too crazy on Saturday nights. Staying up late and getting super drunk on Saturday nights make the fallout on Sundays that much worse. Save going wild for Fridays — or, if you absolutely must party on Saturdays, get started early and finish at a reasonable time.
- Don’t sleep in too late on Sunday morning. It’s pretty wildly acknowledged that it’s a good idea to wake up at the same time every day — even on weekends — but if you can’t manage to do it on both Saturday and Sunday, at least try to rise closer to your workday wake up time on Sunday. It may not sound fun, but it’ll help.
- Work out. Nothing helps you sleep the sleep of the righteous like an exhausted body.
- Get a jump start on your work week. Even getting just 30 minutes of work in on Sunday will make Monday feel a little less daunting.
- Do something fun on Monday after work. Give yourself something to look forward to!
Not sure whether you’re suffering from the Sunday Sads? BuzzFeed has a handy little guide to help you spot your symptoms (made all the more entertaining with a whole bunch of GIFs — this is BuzzFeed we’re talking about here). An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, after all!
Head on over to Business Insider to watch the video — and if you're suffering from a bad case of the Mondays, here. Have some animals all gussied up in their best duds. It'll make you feel better.
