Do you find yourself soaring on Friday afternoon, only to crash into a pit of dread by Sunday evening? This all-too-common emotional rollercoaster—known as Friday highs and Sunday scaries (or Sunday blues). We all experience it, but understanding why it happens and what to do about it is key to a healthier, more balanced life.
Sometimes the dread of the weekday comes earlier than Sunday, or worse, we miss the weekend highs because we’re too overworked and burned out to actually rest and recover before the workweek resumes.
Why we experience the highs and the lows
The Friday high is that feeling of relief and excitement as we head into the weekend, anticipating fun, excitement, or simply rest and relaxation. Discussions around the office shift to weekend plans, and a relaxed corporate atmosphere takes over. Usually, we start to feel the energy change around hump-day, Wednesday, where people are starting to engage with more social topics, discussing weekend plans, their favorite activities, etc.
As the weekend speeds through, comes the Sunday scaries—a sense of dread, wondering, “do I have to go to work tomorrow?”—can feel like a heavy weight on our chest. This feeling is often rooted in anticipatory anxiety, where you become anxious about the upcoming week, the endless to-do list, and other factors that make the impending workweek scary, daunting.
Ultimately, the cycle exists because we aren’t feeling fulfilled in our jobs. We’re looking forward to the weekend as a source of relief, a two-day “holiday,” more enjoyable than the five days of work.
We experience the highs and lows, because “we’re living for the weekend”. Get to work, put in 40+ hours at work, “pay our dues”, and have 24 hours of respite to show for the hard labor. The energy cost of living this way can compound quickly – more research is released that U.S. employees are taking vacation days to rest and catch up on sleep than to actually take vacation (Newsweek).
A sad indicator of how we aren’t living with purpose in our professional lives, and we’re really burned out.
The current system of 40-hour workweek isn’t sustainable anymore because we aren’t in the manual production era. We are in the mental processing and information synthesis era, which takes a significant mental energy, compounding with additional economical challenges of being underpaid to afford basic needs, it creates a scarcity, where we are constantly feeling overwhelmed.
With the innovation of smartphones, we can do most of our remedial tasks from anywhere, and we don’t need to force ourselves to work a regular 9-5 anymore. With phrases like “case of the Mondays” and “hump day,” build an internal and societal “I don’t want to be here” mentality.
The snowball effect of dread and burnout (the trap!)
When the dread becomes a pattern, starting with the Sunday blues, to the “case of the Mondays”, and then “living for the weekend.” It affects our weekend, leaving us drained because we aren’t actually resting, we are recovering from the haunting impact of not being fulfilled at our jobs. It can even expand beyond Sunday night to other days of the week, becoming a constant, low-grade stress – a burnout indicator. As it continues, it can lead to burnout.
Burnout isn’t a sudden event; it’s a process with 12 stages, from acute to moderate to chronic burnout. Most of the time, we don’t recognize we are burnt out until 3-6 months after we’ve entered the early burnout stages. Stay informed on how to identify and manage burnout effectively. Often, the slow, low-level dread creeps in from weekday to weekend, making its presence felt constantly.
A major contributing factor is the blend of work-and work-from-anywhere mentality. Technology has made it easier for our work to creep into our personal space, as it blurs the lines between the two worlds, it becomes harder to set and maintain clear boundaries. Pushing forward the “constant” work mentality, and the “need to get this done” before I can enjoy [personal activities].
It’s a dangerous snowball effect – and one that is gaining traction faster than we can adapt. It’s crucial to practice setting healthy boundaries with work, work devices, and our attachment to our professional identity.
Strategies for finding balance and reducing the highs and lows
It’s easy to say, “don’t fall for the trap”, but we all fall for it. It’s okay to have the worlds blend from time to time, when you’re in control. When we lose control because our mind and work has overpowered our boundaries constantly, that is the time to worry. Here are a few things you can start doing now to help you recalibrate:
We need to focus on building resilience, creating boundaries, and shifting our mindset.
1. Ask “why” and pinpoint your fatigue
Self-reflection is a powerful starting point. Instead of generalizing with a very common, “I’m tired” or “I’m fine”; focus on different elements of where you’re tired, where you’re fine, where you need rest, where you need to grow, etc.
Ask yourself: Why am I tired? What caused me to lose my energy? Which parts of me are tired? Am I mentally, physically, or emotionally exhausted?
Identifying the type of fatigue allows you to plan your weekend activities to truly recharge that specific battery. For example, if your job is mentally stimulating, focus on more physical or emotional activities on the weekend to give your mind a break. If your job is physically tasking, focus on resting your body while engaging with your mind or emotionally. Recognize which is more drained and prioritize rest and recovery for that part of yourself.
2. Set boundaries and create a rituals to decompress
Setting boundaries between work and personal life is crucial to stop work from “creeping in”. More importantly, maintaining boundaries for work-life is what breaks us. It starts with a “let me just answer this email” and goes towards “let me finish this presentation” and by the end of your task, you’ve already lost time from your weekend.
Start your decompressing from work ritual at work – it doesn’t have to cost a lot of time. It can be as little as a 5-minute reflection at your desk with your laptop closed. You can even tell your team that you won’t be available after 4:30pm because you’re focusing on another project, yourself.
During those five minutes, ask yourself:
What was one thing that went well today? What was one challenge I experienced? What’s one thing I can do to address my challenge tomorrow (after the weekend)? How will I celebrate this one win/progress? What am I looking forward to outside of work?
Doing this before you leave work keeps the work reflection where it belongs—at work—so you don’t re-invite it into your personal time.
3. Focus on progress, not perfection
Building a habit takes longer than losing a habit.
So, focus on showing up regularly. Prioritize giving and making space for yourself. Everyone else is doing the same, prioritizing themselves. And give yourself permission to be human, it’s okay to have your work creep into your weekend, it’s also okay to have personal life creep into work. There’s no compartmentalizing that actually works.
We often put a lot of pressure on our weekends, and if it doesn’t go exactly to our expectations we can feel like it was time wasted. Instead of striving for the perfect weekend, focus on the small steps.
Aim to improve or reduce a negative action by just 5%.
If that’s too high, focus on improving by 1% – you get to decide how you move forward. Celebrate progress, not completion. Completion is a part of progress, and as you continue improving 1% at a time, you’ll get to 100% progress, each step, each dedication, each action count. Shifting your mind to celebrating progress lets you avoid falling for the “i’m a failure” negative self-talk.
Work with me to let today be your Day One, and not dismiss these tips for “i’ll get there ‘One Day'”. The day one and one day, same two words but with very different meaning: one pushes us forward to action, on pushes the action to another day.
4. Practice opening up
Our negative thoughts have more power than we realize. Ever wonder why our mind holds on to the negative thought/comment so much longer than a complement? It’s because negative comments attach with our survival skills, it triggers us if we don’t improve we will be “killed” – extreme, but it’s still a strong motivator.
One negative comment needs five positive comments to nullify.
Practice increasing the positive energy and positive thoughts in your mind. Speak it openly, write it down, focus on more positives in your life than negatives, and you’ll see the change take hold.
One of the easiest and hardest things to do is opening up and communicating about your feelings. Talking about the dread and anxiety—with a partner, family, or friend—can help relinquish the power it holds over you. Open communication and dialogue with depth are key to managing these feelings. Creating a sustainable work-life balance is essential for your mental health. It’s not an on-and-off switch, but an intentional process—like a dimmer—that you must constantly work on to lower the stress.
What’s one small step you can take today to make tomorrow a little brighter?