This is the Business English Podcast, Episode 130, How to Cure the Sunday Scaries.
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Hey, Aubrey, how's it going? How you feeling?
Excellent. I'm great. I'm wondering, Lindsay, do you get the Sunday scaries?
You know, I used and we talk about this a lot on All Ears English, Michelle and I. So guys, go over and check out that show.
But I used to get them. I used to get them really, really bad in school.
I think I had a lot of anxiety around like, performing well in school.
I was a good student, but I had to study a lot.
And I don't know, I would just get freaked out on Sunday nights.
But nowadays, I love my work. I honestly don't get them unless there's something scary, really scary coming up the following week, like a conversation or I don't get the Sunday scaries.
Oh, that's, that's ideal, right? Guys, we're going to talk about this today.
We got a really great question about the Sunday scaries that we're going to share.
And yeah, we're going to dive into what is that and give you three tips on how to avoid them.
If you feel that, if you feel that dread on Sunday of the coming work week.
Yes, I love this. I think it is something that it's a universal feeling for at some point in our lives.
I think we all get the Sunday scaries, right?
At some point. So should I read the question from Edison Lynn?
Okay. Love you guys. I have a question. I learned the expression Sunday scaries in the beginning of the episode.
This is probably from an all ears English episode, right?
Yep. I checked the dictionary and I found no meaning for scary as a noun. please tell me.
And this question was from Edison Lynn. I think I kind of talked over you saying their name.
We want to shout out because this is a great question.
And yeah, you and Michelle have talked about this some over on All Ears English, but it's so applicable to work to business English.
So guys, be sure to hit follow here and go over and follow All Ears English as well.
Check out some of those episodes. But just like you said, Lindsay, this is something that is experienced by many, many people and probably all of us at some point.
It's just that anxiety and dread that can be felt on Sunday at the thought of returning to work on Monday.
Before we get into it deeper, I just want to highlight this was a Spotify question, meaning now you guys have the capability to ask a question for an episode topic right inside of Spotify.
So if you listen on Spotify, just pull up the episode and find the place to ask your question.
Ask it there because we do read those every week.
And we are able to answer those questions, especially if they're good ones.
Right, Aubrey? Awesome. Yes. So many places for you guys to leave us questions, right?
Email us, leave it in a review, YouTube comments, Spotify.
Amazing. So many options. So many options.
All right. Let's talk about it a little bit more.
Yeah. Yeah. So first of all, why do people get the Sunday scaries?
Like there are lots of reasons. What do you think, Quincy?
You know, certainly if you're burned out or you're overworked, maybe a weekend, just two days is not quite enough.
And so you feel that dread, that sense of dread that you're going to be overworked by Wednesday of the following week.
Yes. Right. Or maybe you're having specific problems at work that cause anxiety or anxiety.
Like you said, something coming up that you're nervous about.
And also just if you don't have the best work life balance, like if you're not.
And sometimes I'm guilty of this. If you don't turn on your out of office for your email, maybe you're checking work email through the weekend.
So you don't really feel like you got those days off.
Then you might sort of feel like it's just a continuation work week all the time.
And you start feeling that dread. Yeah, it's a tough calculation, right?
Like we think, let's say on a Saturday, if we haven't turned our work email off, we think it's going to be satisfying just to answer that question, just to kind of clear our queue, right, of questions and what we need to do.
But by the end, we haven't gotten a good rest and it's not.
We're just still, we've been working all weekend, right?
So, you know, trying to do things like, I try not to put my work email on my phone anymore, just totally take it off, you know?
So then if I'm in the mountains and I just have out of office work, And that's it.
Let that real break. Yeah. So we want to dive into how to cure the Sunday scaries.
I found this amazing article in CNN that had some great advice.
It was called How to Ward Off the Sunday Scaries.
And this was by Jolanta Burke. So we're going to share some advice from this article because there are a lot of different causes, right?
Some of these we can change in order to prevent those Sunday scaries from happening.
Some are a bit more difficult to address, like... you know, extreme anxiety or maybe people at work who treat you unfairly or you don't have a good relationship.
Some that's still definitely worth addressing, but might be a little trickier.
But today we're going to address the things that you can change.
That's true. We didn't mention that at the top, but that could be another reason for the Sunday Scaries about a person at work that's maybe harassing you or bullying you or you just can't stand them or something, right?
That would be tough, right? You're just dreading having to work with a certain person.
That's harder to change. Yes. Okay. So what's the first recommendation from the article?
Yeah. So number one is to finish tasks before you end work on Friday, right?
To finish any tasks you need to do before the weekend instead of leaving it till Monday morning.
And a really good point they made was if you're in the middle of a project, complete a milestone task. something that will feel like you're closing a chapter and something feels finished and completed.
Even if you're not able to actually finish the project by Monday, complete some kind of task that feels like you have completed it and you can put everything off until Monday.
Oh, yeah, this is a good point. It's so much about that progress effect.
We talk about this on All Ears English quite a lot, the endowed progress effect.
We need that mental cue that, hey, we're making progress.
That's actually incredibly, incredible motivation.
And so if we can create that for ourselves, we can kind of hack our brains.
We know our brains need that dopamine hit so we can find a way to get it.
Yes. And you can totally see how if you don't do this, it can affect your sleep.
It can affect how much you're able to just really block out work and spend valuable time with your family if you're stressed about all the things that you have to get done on Monday.
So this needs to be very conscious, right?
A conscious decision of like, I am going to see my work as finished before the end of the work week, before the weekend, so that I can really have that work-life balance.
See details online. Yeah, I mean, just to kind of play devil's advocate on this, right, because we want to add our own ideas as well.
So the opposite way that I think could also be useful, that I've gotten the impression that some people use it, like high performers that I talk to a lot, is taking the opposite idea and saying, there's always going to be undone things.
There's always going to be more to do. So being okay with that in a way could be actually the opposite approach.
But if that works better, that could work too.
I love that to give this other option because we have to recognize that all of us are going to approach things different, have sort of a different mental... There's never like one blanket...
You know, option, reason, solution for every type of personality.
So that might work better for you. Like you said, Lindsay, we've talked to a lot of professionals that are able to get to that point where they recognize there's always more to be done and just becoming okay with that and being able to shut off your work brain.
Right. Because if you think about it, it's like, OK, I can finish this milestone of this one project, but I have five other projects that have open milestones.
Right. So is it going to help you find out, guys, for yourself which way is going to help?
I find it interesting, the second approach.
Right. There's always going to be undone tasks.
So I need to stop and just stop. Right. Yeah.
Completely. And come back to it. Absolutely.
Which one do you think would work better for you, Aubrey, as a professional?
Like which? The first one, I think for me, there are Friday at the end of the day, if I have, you know, if I'm thinking about all the things that I have on Monday as just continuation of what I'm doing Friday, it's hard for me to just turn that off.
But if I see it as sort of separate new tasks starting Monday morning, then I can see Monday as a starting point.
And that works well for me. Totally. You definitely see a lot of like emails coming in on Friday afternoon where, you know, people have been like, not quite getting to it by the end they just want to fire it off or before a long weekend or something you're like oh this was a running out of the office response right right they're getting that milestone get this done and then i can leave yeah i definitely do that too especially easier things for me it's it's harder for me to do on a friday afternoon at three like a big milestone thing no you of true work, but I will try to fire off those emails that I've been putting off all week.
Like just touching base. Like even if I can't reply with a proper full information, cause I don't have that yet.
I might say, Hey, I see your email. I'll get back to you next week when I have more information.
Right. It's just that tying up of loose ends, right?
We use this idiom tying up loose ends, which means we have all these things just out there floating that we know we need to address on Monday.
It might be hard to just turn it off. But if you can shoot off a couple emails so you feel like you're addressing this, then OK, now I'm ready.
Yeah, those loose ends really do cause stress, don't they?
They really do. I don't know what that is.
I don't know if that's cultural, like what we've been taught around our task based mentality in the U.S., I don't know.
It's really interesting. So let's go into the second one.
The second recommendation from the article.
Yeah. So this is to create positive anticipation, right?
It's rare that everyone will love every single task they have at work.
But if you're dreading everything you have the next week, you're going to get the Sunday scaries probably.
But... There are things that you look forward to.
Everyone has something they look forward to.
And if not, you can create something. Right.
Find that positive anticipation so that every week you have something planned that you're looking forward to.
Yeah. So does this mean so it could be even outside of work?
Maybe you set up a business lunch, for example, or a social lunch in the middle of the day.
Is that what you mean? Or is it like, well, there's lots of options.
Yeah. Yeah, like that could be one thing, right?
If you don't like any of the actual work you're doing, sure, set up some kind of business lunch.
And that's something to anticipate in a positive way.
Or it could be the actual work that you're doing, right?
You can either find a way to change your mentality so that you're looking forward to a part of the project, whatever you like the most or feel the most successful about.
If you can create positive anticipation for at least part of it, that's going to help stave off those Sunday scaries.
Totally. Totally. What I see is what's in common with this author's suggestions.
We said the author's name earlier, right?
Yolanda Burke, I believe is her name. So what I see in common is just that extra level of thoughtfulness of kind of hacking your own mind of knowing what you need.
It's a self-awareness. It's like a mindfulness of knowing how your brain works and what you need.
It's like it's living one level deeper in the world, I think.
Yes. Oh, absolutely. I think you're exactly right.
It's creating that balance, right? We all recognize we might have some of these negative emotions, a little bit of dread, but if we can balance that with things to look forward to, things to anticipate, then we know there's something fun to look forward to, something that we'll want to do, that we are anticipating, and that will balance that out.
100%. Okay, Aubrey, what is Yolanda Burke's third suggestion?
And then we'll leave our own comments and we'll react to them.
Yes. So this is interesting just to write it down, right?
She was talking about if you get Sunday scaries and don't know what's causing them, that you could take maybe 20 minutes of time to write down your thoughts and feelings.
And this will help you figure out what causes those anxious thoughts and how to address them.
I love that idea because our culture, at least American culture, does not teach us how to figure out what we're feeling.
We just don't have resources for that unless we've been in a lot of therapy throughout our whole lives and maybe spiritual practice.
We don't necessarily have a way to figure out what are we feeling?
What is the thing I'm so afraid of at work?
Maybe I don't know. Exactly, right? How can I figure that out?
And so I love this too. She had some suggestions where she said, if you're not used to expressive writing, if this is not something that comes naturally to you, she had some great tips.
She said you can write about challenges using a different perspective, right from the perspective, from the viewpoint of maybe your parent or your best friend.
So you can sort of pull outside of yourself.
How would someone else see these problems?
That's an interesting way to write about it.
Oh, that's very interesting. Right. And writing at different times of the day, we said, right, right.
Different times, maybe catching different emotions or different insights, depending on what time it is.
Oh, very interesting. I love that. Journaling is great.
You know, just writing out thoughts. Yes, right.
It works. And if you really are opposed to writing or journaling, there are other options.
You could use a voice recorder or record a video if that feels more natural or is more engaging for you.
There are lots of options. The idea is just to get your feelings out, because if you're bottling it up and you haven't really processed it, it will be hard to really figure out how to solve your problems.
Yes, I love it. These are three good suggestions.
And there's other things we can do too. I mean, some things that I try to do, it's a bit more superficial.
But I like, you know, by Friday afternoon, I think I said this on All Ears English just recently.
But by Friday afternoon, my office is kind of chaotic.
I've got all these papers everywhere. and i'm in a really crazy place on fridays right mentally i'm just just intense um and so what i try to do is sunday evening when i'm after i've done like a meditation practice i try to come into my office briefly and just organize my papers maybe write out a clean to-do list And then I come into my office Monday morning and things are very like, and that reduces that sense of anxiety that any anxiety I might feel going into the week.
Interesting. Things feel clean and put together, like clean off my desk.
It's something around the mindfulness of your space being very zen, like very clean.
Yeah. Yes, absolutely. And I know it is different for everyone.
Like we were mentioning, I was chatting with Jessica during one of our quizzes.
Actually, there are quizzes you can take after the Allers English podcast, which are so fun, by the way.
But she was saying she has to at the end of the day, Friday, really get organized about what will happen Monday, create a to do list, organize her space like she has to do that Friday before she finishes work.
Right. Just depends on our personality.
It depends on how you feel Friday. Right.
Another thing I've heard that we didn't mention is that you could plan a social event Sunday night.
So all throughout the weekend, you're looking forward to the social event.
You're not feeling like the down scope of, oh, God, we're getting closer to Monday by Sunday at three.
You're like, I have plans tonight. I have trivia night.
It's not about Monday morning. I love that idea.
And I do feel like I do that a lot. I often will make plans for Sunday evening.
And that's exactly why, right? I want to have something fun to look forward to all weekend instead of just having work be the only thing I'm looking forward to.
Exactly. So there's a lot of things we could do.
We've seen three suggestions from this author.
We've thrown out a few other ideas and I do want to reiterate Sunday Scaries.
Yes, it is a saying for our listeners. Normally scary is an adjective.
In this case, we're making it a noun. Aubrey, maybe that would be a great episode idea for another day.
What are some situations where adjectives have become nouns in a saying?
Maybe there are others. Yeah, right. For sure.
Right. Whenever with lots of idioms, we do this where we'll take an adjective, make it a noun, and we can only really use it in that idiom because other than this usage, we don't use it as a noun.
I love it. So good. So the takeaway is guys have that kind of meta perspective here.
If you do experience Sunday scaries, you don't have to be a victim.
You don't have to just take it passively.
You can design and engineer your habits to fix this or to make it better.
Ultimately, you probably should look at what you're doing for work.
Yes. Right. Because if there's something wrong, there's something that's not necessarily going to go away. look at your career, look at your job.
Could we make a change? Is there something else you should be doing?
But there are other little things we can do in the meantime.
Absolutely. Lots of solutions to make a change so that you're not feeling that dread on Sunday.
Don't just feel like, oh, this is just normal.
Everyone feels it. No, you can change it so that you are looking forward to work.
I love it. So good. So good. Aubrey, this is a great topic.
I'm glad we talked about this today on Business English.
So interesting. Awesome. Lindsay, I will see you next time.
All right. Talk soon. Bye. Bye. Thank you for listening to Business English, a podcast just for you, the high achieving global professional.
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