I Think Sunday Scaries Are Worse Than Mondays Now
It's like 5 PM on Sunday and I've been staring at my laptop for 20 minutes trying to remember what I was going to write about. Oh right. Sunday scaries. The thing I'm currently experiencing while trying to write about experiencing it. Very meta. Very unproductive.
You know what's weird? I used to think Sunday scaries were just about dreading Monday. Like, Monday is the problem, Sunday is just the preview. But I'm starting to think it's actually worse than that.
Sundays are when you realize you spent your whole weekend doing... what exactly? I was going to clean my apartment. I was going to meal prep. I was going to do literally anything that would make Monday easier. Instead I watched like 6 hours of some show I don't even remember the name of and now it's dark outside and tomorrow exists.
The Zone Thing That Makes Sunday Scaries Make Sense
Okay so here's what nobody tells you about Sunday scaries: they're not actually about Sunday. They're about your brain already being in 🟡 Yellow Zone (or worse) and knowing Monday's going to push you straight into 🔴 Red.
Think about it. Friday afternoon you were probably already fried. Saturday you were in ⚫ Can't-Even Zone — couldn't do the productive stuff, couldn't fully rest, just sort of existed. By Sunday afternoon you've barely recovered to Yellow and your nervous system is like "we're about to do this again?"
That's why the dread hits around 3-5 PM. It's not anticipatory anxiety about specific Monday tasks. It's your body recognizing the pattern: you never actually got back to 🟢 Green Zone and now you're about to spend another week running on fumes.
The brutal truth: Most people's "Sunday scaries" are actually "still-in-Yellow-from-last-week" scaries. You're not recovering on weekends. You're just slightly less overwhelmed.
The Part Where I'm Supposed to Explain The Science
There's this thing called anticipatory anxiety. Your brain is trying to protect you by predicting threats, which made sense when threats were lions or whatever, but now your brain thinks your inbox is a lion. Which is kind of accurate honestly, have you seen my inbox?
Someone told me it's related to negativity bias—where your brain automatically assumes worst-case scenarios—but I can't remember if that's actually what it's called or if I'm making it up. The point is, your brain is catastrophizing about Monday before Monday even happens, so you're essentially suffering through work stress twice. Once on Sunday for free, then again on Monday when you're actually there.
If presentation anxiety or performance pressure is amplifying your Sunday dread, you might want to explore strategies for staying calm under pressure—because anticipatory anxiety about specific Monday tasks is its own beast.
And apparently this costs companies like $300 billion a year in productivity or something? I read that somewhere. Could be wrong about the number but it sounds right. Everyone's just stumbling through Mondays in a fog because they already burned out their nervous system on Sunday afternoon.
What You're Probably Doing (I'm Definitely Doing)
Okay so the thing nobody wants to admit is that we're all handling this badly.
I've tried:
- Ignoring it (doesn't work, just makes the dread spread out over more hours)
- Planning Monday (this somehow makes it worse? Like now I know exactly how much I don't want to do tomorrow)
- That thing where you start work Sunday night to "get ahead" (absolutely insane behavior, do not recommend, I still do it sometimes)
Oh and I forgot to mention drinking. I'm not going to lecture about drinking because I'm not your mom, but like. If your solution to Sunday scaries is three glasses of wine, you're just moving the problem to Monday morning plus now you feel like garbage. Known this for years, still do it sometimes.
The real issue is none of this is actually dealing with stress. It's just different flavors of avoidance. And here's why they don't work: you're trying to use Green Zone strategies (planning, reasoning, optimizing) while you're in Yellow or Red Zone. Your brain doesn't have the capacity for that.
What Actually Works (Matched to the Zone You're Actually In)
I don't know how to explain this without sounding like every other productivity blog, but here goes.
The trick isn't to fix Sunday scaries with better planning or positive thinking. The trick is to figure out what zone you're in and do something that works for that capacity level.
If you're in 🟡 Yellow Zone (managing but anxious):
Do something really small. Not "plan your week" small. Smaller than that. Like "put your work bag by the door" small. "Lay out tomorrow's clothes" small. "Write down literally one thing that would make Monday feel okay" small.
There's some research about this—something about how tiny habits actually stick better than big changes because they don't trigger resistance—but I'm not going to look it up right now because that would require me to stop writing and I'm on a roll (kind of).
If you're in 🔴 Red Zone (system flooded, doom spiral):
Stop trying to think your way out. You can't. Your nervous system is already activated and no amount of "being rational" is going to fix it. You need a physical interrupt.
I've been trying this thing where I just... walk. For like 10 minutes. No podcast, no "productive" anything, just walk around the block. It's boring. It doesn't fix anything. But it does something to my nervous system that makes the doom feeling less intense. Sometimes.
If you're in ⚫ Can't-Even Zone (everything is effort):
You're not lazy. You're not weak. Your body forced a shutdown because you ignored Yellow and Red too long. The only thing that works here is actual rest. Not productive rest. Not "I'll just check email real quick" rest. Real rest.
This is the hardest one because our brains tell us we "should" be preparing for Monday. But if you're in Can't-Even on Sunday, preparing for Monday is what got you here. The best thing you can do for Monday is recover enough to start the week in Yellow instead of Red.
The Point Is
Sunday scaries are worst between like 3 PM and 7 PM, right? That's when you check what zone you're in and do the thing that works for that zone. Not the thing you "should" do. The thing that actually works when your capacity is what it is, not what you wish it was.
Work-Life Balance Is A Lie We Tell Ourselves
Can we be honest for a second? "Work-life balance" is corporate gaslighting. They act like these are two equal forces you can balance when actually work is actively trying to consume your life and you're just trying to protect whatever's left.
And if you're like me—or actually if you have ADHD or anxiety or any brain situation that makes boundaries harder—Sundays are even worse because you can't fully disconnect. Your brain is halfway at work all weekend. So you get to Sunday afternoon and you haven't actually rested but you also haven't been productive, so you just feel bad about yourself in multiple directions at once.
I wish someone had told me earlier that this isn't a personal failing. Like, yes, you need better stress management. But also? The system is designed to keep you in this cycle. Acknowledging that doesn't fix it but it at least makes you feel less broken.
When work follows you home every weekend and you can't seem to create boundaries that stick, that's not laziness or lack of discipline—it's a pattern that needs specific tools to interrupt. Tools that work in Yellow and Red zone, because that's where most of us are living.
The Stress Mastery Thing (This Is The Part Where I Mention The Product, Sorry)
Okay look. Here's where I'm supposed to tell you about this 30-minute stress reset thing. It's free. It's basically an AI coach that helps you figure out which zone you're in, which stress pattern you're stuck in, and gives you something specific to try that works for your actual capacity level.
I'm mentioning it because—and I know this sounds like marketing copy but I mean it—it's designed for people whose brains don't naturally do the boundary/structure thing. You tell it you're spiraling about Monday and it doesn't give you some generic advice about self-care. It figures out what zone you're in and gives you a specific behavior that works in that zone to interrupt the pattern.
If you try it and it helps, there's a subscription. Monthly if you're skeptical (don't blame you), annual if you want to commit (it's like $299/year which honestly I'm not sure if that's expensive or reasonable, depends on how much you hate Sundays I guess). The subscription adapts to your brain instead of making you adapt to some system that works for neurotypical people with perfect executive function.
But whatever. Try the free thing or don't. I'm not your boss.
What You Get Out of This (Besides Stopping the Doom Scroll)
Personal benefit: Maybe you sleep on Sunday night. Maybe Monday morning doesn't feel like walking into a wall. Maybe you actually remember that you're a person with a life instead of just a thing that goes to work.
Work benefit: When you don't start Monday already in Red Zone, you make fewer mistakes. You're less of a zombie in meetings. Apparently this can get you back like 20-30% of your Monday productivity, which over a year is... I don't know, a lot? I'm not doing the math right now but it's significant.
Also—and nobody talks about this—when you're not constantly running on stress, you might actually figure out if you like your job or not. Right now you're too burned out to know the difference between "this job is bad" and "I'm too stressed to function." Both could be true. Hard to tell when your baseline is Sunday dread and you never actually recover to Green Zone long enough to think clearly.
I Don't Have A Good Ending For This
I was going to write something inspirational here but honestly I'm out of steam.
Sunday scaries are brutal. They're a symptom of everything broken about how we work and live. But we still have to get through this Sunday. And next Sunday. And the one after that.
You could keep doing what you're doing—which is probably some combination of avoidance and self-criticism—or you could try something different. Something matched to the zone you're actually in instead of the one you wish you were in.
The reset thing I mentioned is here if you want it. It'll help you figure out what zone you're in and what actually works there. Or try the walk thing if you're in Red. Or actual rest if you're in Can't-Even. The point isn't what you do, it's that you do something that matches your actual capacity instead of just letting Sunday slowly crush you while you scroll.
I'm going to publish this now before I overthink it and delete everything. If you're reading this on Sunday afternoon, solidarity. We're all just trying to make it to Friday. Or at least to Green Zone for like five minutes.
Ready to Break the Sunday Spiral?
Try the free 30-minute stress reset and figure out what zone you're in—then get something specific to interrupt your pattern that actually works for that capacity level. No generic self-care advice, just tools that work for brains that don't do boundaries naturally.
