It’s Sunday afternoon. You’ve finally checked off all the things keeping your life outside work afloat, so you exhale, but the rest is short-lived. An old, familiar, yet unwelcome feeling starts to grow. You notice a shorter fuse with the people you love. Your mood plummets as your mind races and your anxiety spikes. That’s when you know, as if on cue, the Sunday scaries are back.
What Are the Sunday Scaries?
The Sunday scaries are this creeping sense of dread, anxiety, or uneasiness that shows up as the weekend winds down. It is what we call “anticipatory stress,” a reaction to what we think is coming, not necessarily to what is happening right now.
For some, it can show up as irritability or a mind that won’t slow down. For others, it might be trouble falling asleep or a heavy sense of dread within. Whatever form they take, they are a familiar emotional reality and experience for many, and they’re not always just about work. Children, students, parents, and caregivers can experience their own version of the Sunday scaries as they anticipate what’s ahead. For strategies to help children cope, I invite you to read my previous post.
Why We Get the Sunday Scaries
Our brains are constantly scanning ahead, trying to anticipate challenges and keep us safe. Worries about workload, balancing personal and professional to-dos, and carrying unfinished tasks into a new week are all commonly reported as contributing to the familiar sense of unease. A recent study out of the University of Exeter found that 79% of people experience or have experienced the “Sunday Night Blues” at some point (Inceoglu et al., 2025). Energy was lowest on Sunday evening, even lower than on Monday evening. Research has also found that subjective well-being can decline as the weekend draws to a close (Akay & Martinsson, 2009). Participants in another qualitative study described how the feeling can spread through a household (Peng et al., 2026).
There are three things that tend to drive the Sunday scaries:
- Uncertainty: We don’t know what the week will bring, so our minds fill in the blanks.
- Loss of control: Our cognitive load may ease over the weekend, making the thought of juggling competing priorities, obligations, decisions, and demands and transitioning into work mode feel especially daunting.
- The pressure to perform: We feel we must be ready to do it all again, sometimes even before we’ve recovered from the previous week, and if the weekend hasn’t brought the rest or enjoyment we hoped for, we may start the week feeling weary and depleted rather than refreshed.
If the dread is persistent, getting curious about where it is stemming from can be helpful, whether it’s an unsustainable workload, a difficult boss, a lack of recognition, or work that no longer feels meaningful or challenging. There are things we can do to care for our well-being, while also recognizing when it’s something about the work that needs to change.
What We Can Do About Them
Here are five ways we can start to ease the anxiety and make the transition into a new week feel a little easier.
Name the feeling and stressor: Naming the feeling as specifically as we can and identifying the stressor helps us move it from a looming feeling to a problem we can understand. Ask yourself: Where do I feel this in my body? What am I worried about? Sometimes there is one clear cause, like a presentation or a difficult conversation, while other times it is many smaller things stacked on top of one another. Our nervous system will give us signals and clues that are worth paying attention to. It is our job to use that as information.
Make Monday smaller: Trying to tackle the whole week on Sunday night can feel like a losing battle. Before signing off on Friday, jot down your top three tasks for Monday so they are waiting on paper, not circling in your head. Then, I invite you to think of the week as a seven-game series. One day at a time, and let’s aim for four wins!
Build self-trust, not just a better to-do list: Instead of spending Sunday evening trying to anticipate every possible problem in an attempt to feel more in control, try reminding yourself of the challenges you have already navigated and the skills you have developed. You don’t need to know exactly how the week will unfold to trust that you can respond as it does.
Give Sunday something to look forward to: Start a running “joy playbook” on your phone or in a notebook, filled with the people, places, hobbies, and little rituals that give you a little lift. Each Sunday, pick one to enjoy. Perhaps for you it could look like a walk, a favourite show, or cozying up with a good book. You can even get the whole family involved!
Call it what it is: Not every job has to be your dream job, and not every career has to last forever. Sometimes you’re learning, sometimes you’re earning. Reminding yourself what this role is making possible, and having a plan for what comes next, can make the temporary feel less daunting. If the dread shows up week after week, it is worth taking a closer look at whether the role is a good fit and still aligns with your values.
What works for one person may not work for someone else. My gentle invitation is to notice how these practices feel for you and keep what helps.
Final Thoughts
Sunday is a day of your life, not just a waiting room for Monday. When it’s spent bracing for the week ahead, we miss the chance to truly slow down, recharge, and make what matters most matter most. Remember, too, that worrying about the week ahead isn’t the same as preparing for it. Worry tends to go in circles, while preparation gives us something to act on. If something pops up, ask yourself if there’s something small you can do about it right now to put the worry to rest. If not, write it on a sticky note and tell yourself you will address it on Monday.
Our work matters, but it should never matter more than the person doing it. Taking care of ourselves is part of what helps us continue to do the good work and show up for the people who count on us, personally and professionally.
