Sunday Scaries: Making Your Thursday, a Sunday

Okay, Sunday scaries. We've all been there. For some, they're present the minute you wake up Sunday. For others, you may not start to feel it until the afternoon. Regardless of when, I would venture to guess we've all experienced the Sunday scaries at some point or another.

Some of us, maybe even every week.

What are Sunday Scaries?

But if you haven't, or are unfamiliar, here's the scientific (lol) definition: "The Sunday scaries are feelings of intense anxiety and dread that routinely occur every Sunday. They often start in the late afternoon and continue into the evening. However, depending on a person's level of anxiety, these feelings can start as soon as they get out of bed." Dr. Albers, 2021.

What causes them?

• work related stress

• drinking heavily the night before

• a never ending to do list

• unhappy at your job

• overwhelmed with the week ahead

• anxiety

How I combat them

I have openly talked about the fact that I suffer from GAD, generalized anxiety disorder, which I obviously believe plays a part in how bad my Sunday scaries can get. But you don’t have to have anxiety to have had the Sunday scaries feeling before! However, having anxiety has made me an expert in identifying triggers and why I feel a certain way, so I've started to pinpoint exactly what helps me in these moments and how I can help alleviate those feelings! So, I'm here to help you!

For me, no matter the reason for my Sunday scaries, the more I have to get done on Sundays, the worse off I am/they are. Knowing this, instead of leaving my weekend to do list for Sundays, I've started making my Thursdays, my Sundays!

What Do I mean By this?

You're probably thinking, okay what exactly does that mean?

Before about 6 months ago, I would leave every single thing I needed to get done over the weekend, for Sunday. Things like dishes, meal prep, laundry, grocery shopping, washing my bedding, folding clothes, picking up, vacuuming, making my to do list for the week, etc. Essentially, things that needed to be done weekly, but I didn't have time for with work during the week, and things I certainly didn't have time (or the desire to do) on a Friday or Saturday.

That meant, from the moment I would wake up on Sundays, all I could think about was what I had to get done for the day. It caused me so much unnecessary anxiety.

Sundays should be a day to relax and rest for the week ahead, but I never, ever did that. I was too busy doing chores and crossing things off my list to ever relax. By 8pm on Sundays, I always felt like I needed an entire extra day to recover from Sunday to actually be ready for the week.

If we traveled on the weekend, talk about another level of overwhelmed. Instead of enjoying the last day of my trip (Saturday) all I could ever think about is how much I had to do the next day, or to prep for the week ahead with work.

Don't get me started on being hungover on Sundays, game over. Nothing is getting done. Extreme anxiety all day long.

So, I started moving that Sunday to do list, to Thursdays - here's why! Doing those chores/that list of things on a Friday or Saturday is never ideal; we are always so busy on the weekends! But, I'm never busy on Thursday afternoons which makes it a perfect time before weekend craziness.

What Does my Thursday Look like?

I try to start my work day 30 ish minutes earlier on Thursdays so that I can finish 30 mins to an hour earlier in the day, leaving a little extra time to finish everything so that I'm not wasting my whole Thursday evening accomplishing this list!

Around 3:00, I take 5 minutes to write down everything I want to finish just so I don't forget things. It looks fairly similar each week! I call it my ’Thursday Reset’.

My List:

• start laundry

• pick up / tidy up

• vacuum main areas

• start dishwasher

• clean countertops

• clean out fridge of anything that's gone bad

• take out the trash

• fill out my planner for the upcoming week

• make a grocery list for the next week

• schedule Instacart for Sunday

• wash bedding

• fold clothes

It looks like a long list, but this never takes me more than 2 hours (don't ask me why, but on Sundays it would take me all day, but I am a woman on a mission on Thursday nights!) So by 5:00ish, everything is done! It is the best feeling to have your entire to do list done on a Thursday afternoon.

Why Does this help?

This helps me for so many reasons, but for one thing, we travel a lot. In the summer we're at the lake every single weekend. If we don't get home until 5:00 on Sundays, my entire night is spent trying to accomplish this list before we go to sleep.

It's stressful, I never get to do anything I actually want to do on Sunday evenings, and I go to bed so much more anxious about the week if I haven't had any time to decompress. I also talked about how this ruins part of my Saturday because I'm so overwhelmed with everything I need to get done on Sunday. Can you tell I have anxiety? ;)

Even if we don't travel, the feeling of waking up on a Sunday and having the entire day to do whatever I want makes the weekend feel twice as long, seriously. When you have a huge to do list on Sunday, I feel like it wipes out 50% of your weekend. With this list being done on Thursday, all I have to do on Sundays is put away groceries and meal prep.

We've been able to spend time at my mother in law's pool on Sundays, we can go grab coffee/breakfast, we've been able to work on house projects, I've spent time reading, going to get my nails done, we've gone to the golf course, I meal prep and actually enjoy trying new recipes without being rushed/trying to get it done as quickly as humanly possible, we can take the dogs to the park, etc. I feel like it has changed my entire weekend, truly. I tell Taylor, it's like an "extra" Saturday, which is how Sunday should feel!

I Promise I'm almost done

It may not work miracles overnight, but I promise you, getting things done/clearing your Sunday to do list earlier in the week will help put your mind at ease for the week ahead, and you'll feel like you're getting some of your weekend back!

I can't help with work related anxiety, but as someone who used to think the majority of my Sunday scaries were 'related to work', the root of it had so much more to do with actually having a day to relax before the week ahead.

Think of it this way - let's pretend you have a huge presentation at work. Are you going to feel better finding out about it one night before you have to present? Or are you going to feel better with 3 days notice, 3 full days to prepare, and a day of relaxing right before you present? That's how I think about this!

Try it and see! :)