The Sunday Scaries: Why We Feel Them and How Therapy Can Help
By Mark Ryan, BACP Accredited Psychotherapist and NCPS Accredited Relationship Therapist
Most of us know the feeling. It is Sunday evening, and instead of enjoying the last hours of the weekend, a creeping sense of dread begins to rise. Thoughts of emails, deadlines, a difficult colleague or simply the sudden return to structure make it hard to settle. People call this the Sunday scaries, and in my experience it is one of the most common things clients mention when they first arrive in the therapy room, often almost in passing. A little unease before a busy week is ordinary. When it becomes a weekly weight, it is worth listening to, because it is usually telling you something useful about how you are living and working.
What the Sunday Scaries Feel Like
The Sunday scaries are the tension, dread or restlessness that gathers in the evening before a new week begins. People describe them in different ways, and they rarely look the same twice. Some of the most common experiences include
Restlessness or irritability that seems to have no obvious cause
A heavy sense of dread, or of something unpleasant waiting
Difficulty falling asleep, or waking in the small hours with the week already running through your mind
Going over unfinished tasks, conversations and what might go wrong
Physical tension, such as tight shoulders, a clenched jaw, a knotted stomach or a headache
Some people feel it from Sunday lunchtime. Others feel it as a low hum on Saturday night that grows through the next day. For some it shows up as a sudden need to tidy, plan or check email, which can look like productivity but often works as a way of managing the unease.
Research on the working week gives us a few reasons to take this seriously and not dismiss it as moaning. In a pilot study that followed 40 full time employees through a working week, sleep onset took longer on the night before Monday than before other working days, and people reported more slips in concentration at work on Mondays (Elfering et al., 2020). It was a small study, but it fits what many people tell me about Sunday nights. The mind does not switch off just because the body is in bed.
Why Do We Get the Sunday Scaries
Several things tend to overlap, and it helps to see which ones apply to you.
Anticipation. Much of the Sunday feeling is the mind rehearsing the week before it happens. The brain is good at preparing for trouble, and on a Sunday evening it has time and quiet to do so. A little planning is useful. When the mind loops through the same what ifs without reaching a decision, it stops being preparation and starts being worry.
The shift from freedom to structure. Weekends tend to stand for choice, rest and doing what we like. Moving back into a world where other people set the expectations can bring resistance, grief or dread, and that makes sense. It does not mean you are ungrateful or lazy.
Workload and burnout. If your workload is unmanageable, or your job leaves you drained and detached, Sunday evening can become the point where you face it. Researchers who have reviewed the evidence on recovery from work report that heavy job demands predict poorer psychological detachment from work in non work time, and that poor detachment in turn predicts higher strain and poorer wellbeing, including burnout and lower life satisfaction (Sonnentag and Fritz, 2015). In plain terms, when work follows you home, it becomes much harder to recover, and Sunday is where that bill arrives.
Sleep and rhythm. Many of us stay up later and sleep differently at weekends. By Sunday night the body may not feel ready for bed, which leaves more time for the mind to fill. In my experience a poor night then feeds the next day's anxiety, and the next night's sleep, and the loop tightens.
Something deeper. For some people the Sunday scaries are the visible edge of longer standing anxiety, low mood, perfectionism or a sense of being trapped. When the pattern repeats every week it can reinforce the feeling that life is something to be endured. I come back to this below, because it is where therapy often has the most to offer.
The Weekend Has a Pattern Too
It can help to know that the weekly dip is not just in your head. In a diary style study of 87 employees followed over 12 days, energy rose across the weekend and fell on Monday, and the researchers found that positive anticipation of work attenuated the Monday drop (Weigelt et al., 2021). The study also found that improvements in sleep quality predicted improvements in energy.
I take two practical points from this. First, a lift in energy over the weekend is real, which is a good reason to protect your sleep and your rest, and not to spend Saturday and Sunday in a half working state. Second, how you approach Monday matters. Looking forward to even a small part of the working week appears to soften the landing. That is the reasoning behind a lot of what follows.
How you approach Monday matters. Looking forward to even a small part of the working week appears to soften the landing.
Practical Ways to Ease the Sunday Scaries
None of these will remove every Sunday wobble, and they are not a substitute for dealing with a job that is harming you. Used together, they can make Sundays a good deal gentler.
Make Sunday evening a transition. Instead of cramming chores or email into the final hours, treat the evening as a bridge. That could mean cooking something comforting, preparing your clothes or bag for the morning, running a bath or taking a walk. The point is to give your mind a clear signal that the weekend is ending kindly and not being snatched away.
Lighten Sunday. Piling an endless list into Sunday often backfires. If you can, spread tasks across Friday evening or Saturday so that Sunday is lighter and more restful. Recovery is not a luxury. The research on detachment from work suggests that time properly away from job demands is part of what allows us to function well in them.
Set gentle boundaries with work. Checking email on Sunday can feel like getting ahead. For many people it just brings Monday forward and lights up the worry early. Turning off work notifications from Friday evening, or deciding on one fixed time when you will look at tomorrow's diary, can protect more of the weekend than you might expect.
Write the worry down. If your mind is looping, a short list of what is on your mind and the first small step for each item can help the thoughts feel contained. Do it earlier in the evening and not in bed. Then give yourself permission to leave it on the page.
Plan something to look forward to on Monday. If Mondays are always loaded with pressure, add something small that you enjoy. That might be a coffee with a friend, a favourite podcast on the commute, a walk at lunch or a workout before work. Given the finding that positive anticipation softens the Monday dip, this is one of the simplest changes to try.
Protect your sleep. Aim for a similar bedtime and wake time across the weekend, within reason. Go easy on heavy meals and alcohol late at night, as both can make sleep lighter. If you cannot sleep, get up and do something calm in low light and come back to bed when you feel drowsy. Lying awake and fighting it tends to make things worse.
Use a few minutes of grounding. Slow breathing with a longer out breath, a short walk, or noticing five things you can see and four you can hear can interrupt a spiral. These are not cures. They are ways of reminding your body that, in this moment, nothing is happening to you.
When It Is About More Than Sunday
For many people Sunday evening stress is an occasional nuisance. For others it is a clue. You might want to look more closely if any of these sound familiar
The dread begins earlier in the weekend, or arrives on other evenings too
You sleep poorly every Sunday even when your sleep habits are good
You feel hopeless or flat about work or about life more widely
You notice a racing heart, sweating, dizziness or panic attacks
The mood leaks into your relationships, your concentration or your enjoyment of things you usually like
In those cases the Sunday scaries may be less about Sunday and more about ongoing stress, burnout, anxiety or low mood. None of these is a character flaw, and all of them can be helped. If you ever feel that life is not worth living, or you are thinking about harming yourself, please speak to your GP, call NHS 111, or call Samaritans free on 116 123 at any time. In an emergency, call 999. The article on telling sadness from depression explains what to look for and when to ask for support.
Work, Identity and Relationships
Sunday dread is rarely only about the job. Clients often tell me it is about what the job has come to mean. It may be the feeling of not being good enough, of having to perform a version of themselves they do not recognise, or of working in a culture where they cannot be fully themselves. That last point matters for many LGBTQ+ people, who may spend the week managing how open to be at work, and for people in consensual non monogamous relationships, who often carry the same quiet calculation about what they can say about their lives. Being on guard all week is tiring, and Sunday is when the tiredness catches up.
The Sunday scaries also reach into relationships. A partner who is anxious on Sunday evening can seem distant, short tempered or hard to reach, and the other partner may take that personally. Naming it helps. Something simple, such as "Sunday evenings are hard for me, and it is about the week and not about you", can change what happens next. If work has taken so much of you that there is little left for home, the article on work addiction explores where that can lead and how people find their way back. If your phone keeps the week alive in your pocket all weekend, the piece on always on phones and social media may also be useful.
How Therapy Can Help
Therapy gives you a steady, unhurried place to look at the Sunday scaries beyond surface level fixes. In my experience it tends to help in a few ways.
Finding out what is underneath. Is the dread a response to an unsustainable workload, a colleague or manager, perfectionism, a gap between your values and your working life, or something older that Sunday simply brings up? A good therapist helps you tell situational stress from deeper patterns, and does not assume the answer in advance.
Building tools that work for you. Cognitive behavioural approaches help many people notice and loosen unhelpful thought patterns, and mindfulness based approaches can help the body settle. A large review of meta analyses found that the strongest support for cognitive behavioural therapy was in anxiety disorders and general stress, and concluded that its evidence base is very strong overall (Hofmann et al., 2012). If you would like to know more about it, including what else is available, the article on CBT, its benefits and limitations sets it out clearly. Therapy is not limited to CBT, and I draw on integrative, relational and attachment based approaches according to what suits the person in front of me.
Thinking about bigger decisions. Sometimes recurring dread says you are in the wrong role, the wrong industry or the wrong stage of life. Therapy offers space to work out what matters to you, to explore change, and to take your time over it without being judged.
Looking after underlying difficulties. If the Sunday scaries are tied up with anxiety, low mood or past difficulties, therapy can help you work with them directly, at a pace that feels safe. You do not have to arrive with a diagnosis or a neat explanation. Many people start with something as small as "Sundays are hard", and that is plenty.
Preventing burnout. By building boundaries, self awareness and a more sustainable way of working, therapy can help you stop the cycle before exhaustion forces the issue. If you are unsure whether therapy is the right step, this self assessment guide may help you decide.
Reclaiming Your Sundays
The Sunday scaries are a reminder of how closely our wellbeing is tied to the way we work, rest and live. Almost everyone feels some anticipation before a busy week, and you do not need to eliminate it. What matters is whether it has become a regular dread that takes your Sunday away, and whether you are willing to look at it with curiosity and kindness.
Small changes often help more than people expect. A lighter Sunday, a better night's sleep, a boundary around email, a little something to look forward to on Monday. If these do not shift things, or if the dread is bigger than the week ahead, that is useful information and a good reason to talk to someone. Sundays can become a time of rest and gentle preparation, and Mondays can become a beginning and not a burden.
If now feels like the right time to talk this through, I offer a free 30 minute consultation in person in London or online. Whether the Sunday scaries are an occasional visitor or have moved in, you are welcome to get in touch.
About the Author
Mark Ryan is a BACP Accredited Psychotherapist and NCPS Accredited Relationship Therapist, and the founder of Rise and Grow Therapy, a private practice offering couples and relationship therapy across Kensington, Pimlico, and Angel, Islington in London, as well as online consultations. His approach draws first on Imago Relationship Therapy, alongside integrative relational, attachment based, Gottman, and systemic approaches. Mark works with couples of all kinds, including LGBTQ+ couples and those in non traditional relationship structures such as consensual non monogamy, as well as with individuals working through relational issues.
References
Elfering, A., Gerhardt, C., Pereira, D., Schenker, A., & Kottwitz, M. U. (2020). The Monday effect revisited: A diary and sleep actigraphy study. Sleep and Vigilance, 4(2), 167 to 176. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41782-020-00105-5
Hofmann, S. G., Asnaani, A., Vonk, I. J. J., Sawyer, A. T., & Fang, A. (2012). The efficacy of cognitive behavioral therapy: A review of meta analyses. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 36(5), 427 to 440. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-012-9476-1
Sonnentag, S., & Fritz, C. (2015). Recovery from job stress: The stressor detachment model as an integrative framework. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 36(S1), S72 to S103. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.1924
Weigelt, O., Siestrup, K., & Prem, R. (2021). Continuity in transition: Combining recovery and day of week perspectives to understand changes in employee energy across the 7 day week. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 42(5), 567 to 586. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.2514
