The endless and eternal Sunday blues

[PurpleSky300]

Can someone please tell me how to kick the 'Sunday blues'?

And by that I mean this intense feeling that seems to hang around from 7pm on a Sunday, every Sunday - an unsettled feeling like something is wrong, like I've made all the wrong decisions, like I'm not making good use of my time. My mind just spirals during these hours, thinking about age, all the things I still want to do, panicking that I might die or something awful might happen before I've achieved what I want to, things like that. I'm not stressed at work, I don't have a terrible job - in fact to be frank I can't wait to be back in the office on a Monday morning because this feeling instantly dissipates.

This might sound a bit trite, but have you tried sitting down with a notebook for 30 mins at 7pm on Sunday and either reflecting on all the things you have done and achieved - including small things, in the past week, or journalling with a focus on one specific thing you'd like to achieve in life, breaking it down into manageable parts and finding one small action you can take right then, e.g. ordering a book on a relevant topic or watching an online video/listening to a podcast or sending an email enquiry about something you would love to do. Take the small steps at the time you normally feel dread. Then at 7.30 knock off, have a bath and do something relaxing that you enjoy.

When I was a teacher, Sunday evenings were particularly difficult. We got into the habit of watching something on tv that the children didn’t want to watch so they left us in peace. I would also read as that took my mind off the coming week.

Bumping this thread because it's Sunday night again, and again I've got this horrible, gnawing, empty feeling in my chest - it feels like when your stomach 'drops' on a rollercoaster ride or that feeling you'd get if you were teetering over the edge at a great height. I know exactly when this feeling starts, I know when it ends, I just don't know what on earth causes it. I honestly wish I could sleep through every Sunday to avoid this feeling.

If you don't have a terrible job now, could this Sunday feeling be an association that's been carried over from earlier in your life? For example from dread of a previous job, or of school?

I understand. Something that helps me is I try and do one useful thing on Sunday night to make the next week easier e.g. I have just now done an online food shop, and that gives me a bit of an endorphin boost and a tick off the list. I also sit down with DP and we have a brief "what's the plans for the coming week" chat - like 15 mins and then we change the topic and watch something good on TV.

So you say it gets better when you go into work. What do you actually do with your weekend? What life do you have outside of work? I used to feel a bit like this when my kids are little and my life was one long treadmill of working and being mum with no downtime for myself. Now they're older and I have a bit more of a life with time to myself, that feeling has gone.

You mean The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul.

Try reading some Douglas Adams?

A huge number of people get this, its anticipatory anxiety hanging over from when we were at school. Its taken decades for this to reduce for me and I still get a bit of it, particularly if I hear the antiques roadshow theme tune

It doesnt necessarily mean school was bad.

I also feel like this most of early September as that was going back to school after the summer break, the colour of the sky and temperature/dew/mist does this to me.

I looked it up and oh my God, exactly this.

"In the end, it was the Sunday afternoons he couldn't cope with, and that terrible listlessness which starts to set in at about 2:55, when you know that you've had all the baths you can usefully have that day, that however hard you stare at any given paragraph in the papers you will never actually read it, or use the revolutionary new pruning technique it describes, and that as you stare at the clock the hands will move relentlessly on to four o'clock, and you will enter the long dark teatime of the soul."

This is a perfect description of it. Perfect.

If anything I have too much me-time. On Saturdays I usually go for lunch with one of my friends, or I might go out for dinner in the evening. Sundays are for shopping, housework etc but the period after Sunday lunch and until about 7pm is INTERMINABLE. I live alone and no matter what I do to distract myself (eg. long bath, watch a film, bake a cake, whatever) - it's like there's a little voice in my head saying "It's Sunday night it's Sunday night it's Sunday night" and it just ruins everything, I can't stop looking at the clock.

You’re in the wrong job. I used to feel like this and often used to wonder if it would be easier to die than to deal with this feeling every Sunday…

In my current job, I’m looking forward to the week ahead after a well rested weekend.

Do you actually like living alone? It sounds like the other days of the week you see people and feel fine, but on Sunday you are always alone and therefore start feeling sad. Maybe you are just lonely and the answer is to arrange to see people on Sunday, or find someone else to live with.

Everyone I know feels like this, even my retired mum still dislikes Sunday evenings. Without going into it more deeply I'd say it's very common and I deal with it by going to bed no later than 8.30pm on a Sunday night. Gets it over and done with and on with the week :)