Dealing with Monday anxiety

Last week I had a case of Monday anxiety.

It don’t recall having such a blockage in the past, I guess because I used to work in an office I usually had this feeling on Sunday nights which is common and referred to as the “Sunday Blues”.

Now that most offices are closed due to the COVID-19 situation, my Sundays are calm and restful. I don’t have to worry about traffic nor about getting ready for a business trip. So much so, that I hadn’t anticipated feeling that way.

On that Monday morning, I found myself dressed up for work, in my home office, staring at my computer screen in a state of paralysis.

I was so confused about what to do that my mind went blank. When that went away, I started having negative thoughts spiraling, almost like a panic attack. Things like: “I have no idea what I’m doing.” ; “I’m never going to have enough time to achieve all I have to do.” ; “What if I get my priorities wrong?” ; “What if I make a mistake?” ; “Am I even good at this?” ; etc.

Source: The Sleep Judge ; Survey of 1 034 employed Americans

I know I am not an isolated case, in fact, studies show that Monday is the most dreaded day of the week and the most stressful one as well.

It makes sense! During the weekends we have time to relax, focus on ourselves and not deal with any anticipatory upcoming constraints. There’s 81% of employees who become progressively anxious on Sundays as the day passes.

Today I’m going to share how I got out of this Monday freeze and turned it around to make it an enjoyable and productive day.

Take a step back

When you are facing a difficult, unsettling situation, the best you can do is getting clarity. So for me that day, it was stepping away from my computer for a while.

Write

I took a piece of paper and started a thought download. In a nutshell, it’s an exercise that consists in writing down every thought that’s going through your brain without making it look or sound pretty: just laying down the words, sentences that you are thinking at that very moment.

If you want more details on that habit, I highly recommend you listen to this podcast episode. Putting your thoughts down on paper helps looking at them from a very factual, impartial angle which makes it then much more easy to counteract and see them for what they are: just harmless thoughts!

Pause

Then, I moved to my meditating spot - which is my couch - and started a 5 minutes meditation. If you are short on time you can also do a one minute meditation. It’s not much, but it will force you to take a breath and stop your brain from spinning.

Meditation is a powerful tool to bring yourself back to the current moment, gain perspective and get to a calm, constructive state of mind.

Plan

Finally, when I was back to a clearer mindset, I made myself a coffee and then worked on my weekly to do.

Listing my priorities and most important things to do for the days ahead. Ideally, I like to start with a fresh to-do each week, to get rid of the prior items I have already done, evaluate the ones I haven’t done yet from the week before and understand why they got postponed, then adding the new things.

Having your calendar, your priorities, your key projects and objectives of the week in mind is key to move forward in the day with purpose and efficiency. Because I’m very visual, it helps me structure my work and see how to approach my projects and timelines.

After these three steps, I felt calm, my objectives were clear and I got the day started.

If you have also experienced moments when you completely freaked out in front of the tasks or responsibilities in front you, how have you pushed through? Do share in the comments below what has helped you in the past, and if you try some of these methods, let me know how they worked out for you!

Other helpful workarounds can be listening to music that calms you down, going for a short walk, reading some of your favorite quotes, calling a friend, colleague or mentor: just speaking with somebody else can give you another perspective on the situation.

Experts have noticed an increase in mental health disorders due to the uncertainty of the climate and the isolation with lock downs and home office work. Do not under estimate the potential additional stress due to the current situation.

Have a great week!

Sources and additional materials:

CNN: Sunday Sadness ; The Sleep Judge ; The Life Coach School ; Mindful: How to Meditate with Anxiety.