Are The Sunday Scaries About Your Job Or About Your Life?

We’ve all felt that Sunday night unease: a tight chest, a growing sense of dread, or a racing mind that stops you from sleeping or wakes you up at 3am. You may not still be at school and have unfinished homework to worry about, but in a time when WFH is commonplace, the boundaries between work and leisure can be blurred.

After a weekend of fun activities, or just relaxing and doing whatever you want, the prospect of the start of the working week can bring on a sense of gloom and anxiety. The common theory is that the so-called ‘Sunday scaries’ are all about returning to work: the thought of overflowing inboxes, unfinished tasks, or simply the loss of freedom.

According to a Linkedin survey, up to 80 per cent of professionals experience the Sunday scaries. However, for many high-functioning individuals, it could actually be the lack of busyness and freedom to really feel that triggers the anxiety, rather than their job. Here’s a look at why the late weekend blues could actually be about deeper issues in your life. 

The calm at the eye of the storm

Of course, sometimes the Sunday scaries really are about the job, especially if you’ve got a toxic work environment, a stressful commute or a whole day of meetings lined up. But for many high performers, their job provides them with control, structure, and a sense of ‘getting things done.’ 

When this safety net is removed and there’s space to be alone with your thoughts, it can cause issues that you’ve been avoiding to take centre stage. This might be buried tensions in a relationship, or grief from a recent breakup or loss. 

It could be an inner sense of loneliness that you mask with professional social events, or even a profound sense of exhaustion and unacknowledged symptoms of burnout. It may be that the anxiety is driven by an inner knowledge that although your life looks successful to outsiders, you feel empty inside, or like a radio that’s out of tune. 

This could be a sign that you need to do some emotional spadework to understand what areas of your life are no longer working for you. 

Ways to gain insight into Sunday anxiety

Think specifically about when the Sunday scaries started: have you always had them, or is it since you moved to your current job role? If it’s since moving to your latest job, try to pinpoint the particular areas of concern. Is there a specific task, meeting, or person that you don’t want to deal with? 

Think about practical steps you can take to improve the situation, such as discussing the concern with your manager. If that’s not a realistic possibility, focus on what you can control, such as taking your full lunch hour away from your desk, and setting Out of Office notices on your email when you’re on annual leave. 

If you’ve always got the scaries no matter what job role you’ve been in, it could be saying something deeper about your life. You may benefit from exploring the underlying causes of your anxiety with a therapist, who will be able to help you clarify your feelings and develop the tools to work through them. 

Make your weekends more rewarding

As WFH becomes more common, the lines between work and leisure can easily become blurred. Set clear boundaries and plan some time for yourself on the weekend. Set a time limit to get any chores done, and make sure that at least some of your weekend is spent on an activity you enjoy, such as outdoor activities or socialising with friends. 

This will mean that when Monday morning rolls around, you’ll feel more relaxed, fulfilled and ready to tackle the week ahead. 

It’s very common and human to feel that creeping dread on a Sunday night. It’s not a pleasant feeling, but it could be the incentive you need to make some changes in your life. This may be relating to your career, or to deeper unresolved issues that can be explored in therapy.