Is there a single word that motivates us more than "weekend"? It's like the promise of a sweet holiday following what seems like long-time exhaustion. It's the spring in our step that gets bouncier with each passing day—until by Friday, we're practically bumping our heads against the ceiling.
The trouble is that the weekend is a rip-off. You think you're getting 48 hours of unconditional downtime, but reality takes a discount. In fact, it takes most of Sunday. That's when anxiety comes creeping in and another countdown begins: 12 hours until Monday. Sure, the weekend is free time. But the mounting stress of an incoming Monday can ease any joy you might get from a Sunday evening.
That feeling is so common among the Monday-to-Friday crowd that there's even more than one name for it: the Sunday Scaries, or Sunday Fear Syndrome. Going from a countdown to the weekend to a countdown to Monday can be difficult. Even Monster.com — a website that specializes in binding humans to the Monday-to-Friday cycle—admits it's a problem. In a survey, Monster found that 76% of Americans have "really had" Sunday night blues.
For most people, Sunday is no holiday at all. It may all come down to the same problem: We can't stop thinking about tomorrow. Even worse, we may develop some downright unhealthy coping strategies for that transition from weekends to Monday. Some might resists — staying up late, milking every minute of a fleeting Sunday in the form of mind-numbing distractions.
But why should Monday cast such a long and fearful shadow on our lives? Maybe it's because the counter is reset and the weekend, or happiness, seems at furthest point. If, like most of us, you have a tolerable job, but don't much like the whole idea of working, there are plenty of ways to make Mondays a little less stressful. Most importantly, don't leave any unsettled Friday business hanging over the weekend. So, clear the decks and tie up loose ends.
