Sunday scaries keeping you up? Monday’s worse. Here’s what helps

It starts around teatime. Roast eaten, telly on, and then it arrives: the knot in your stomach, the mental list, the PE kit, the meeting, the email you’ve been pretending you didn’t see. By bedtime you’re lying there wide awake, already at Monday.

That’s the Sunday scaries. It isn’t you being dramatic. In Britain, a government survey found 67% of adults regularly get Sunday anxiety before the working week, rising to 74% of 18 to 24-year-olds. And in America, a quarter of adults say they often find it harder to fall asleep on a Sunday than on any other night.

People sometimes assume that because I run my own business, I don’t get the Sunday scaries. Not true at all. I do. It isn’t always about work, either. It’s more: holy crap, I have so much on my plate, I need to get some stuff done, and I’m knackered and can’t be arsed.

But here’s the bit nobody tells you.

What are the Sunday scaries, really?

It’s anticipatory anxiety: worrying about something that hasn’t happened yet. On a Sunday, the something is the whole week. Your body doesn’t know the difference between “I have a big meeting at 9am” and “there’s a lion in the kitchen”. Either way, it gets you ready.

And it isn’t all in your head. In one study of 219 people, those who felt most overloaded and worried at work had a bigger rise in the stress hormone cortisol after waking on weekdays, but not at weekends (Schlotz et al., Psychosomatic Medicine, 2004). The week ahead shows up in your body before it shows up in your diary.

Why you can’t sleep on a Sunday night

Two things gang up on you.

Your head is already at work. Bed is the first quiet moment you’ve had all weekend, so that’s when the list comes out to play.

Your body clock has gone on holiday. A later Friday, a lie-in on Saturday, another on Sunday: by Sunday night your body simply isn’t tired at your usual bedtime. Sleep scientists call the gap between your weekday and weekend sleep times “social jetlag” (Roenneberg et al., Current Biology, 2012). Basically, you flew to New York for the weekend without leaving the sofa.

Plot twist: Monday night is worse

Everyone talks about Sunday-night dread. So we looked.

In The 3am Report, we went through six years of Clementine listening by women in the UK. Monday night was 57% busier than Saturday night, the quietest night of the week. Not Sunday. Monday.

It makes sense when you think about it. On Sunday the week is still an idea. By Monday night it’s real: a whole day behind you to go over, and four more ahead.

The same thing happens across the year. The first Monday back in January was 31% busier than a normal night in five years out of six. And Christmas Day, with nothing at all to get up for, was 48% quieter. Tomorrow keeps us awake far more than today does.

So if you take one thing from this: don’t spend all your energy trying to get Sunday night perfect. Plan for Monday night too.

How to stop the Sunday scaries ruining Sunday night

1. Keep Sunday morning close to normal. The NHS advice for poor sleep is to get up at the same time every day, even after a bad night (NHS, insomnia). A little lie-in is fine. A two-hour one makes Sunday night harder.
2. Do the scary bit at teatime, not at bedtime. Ten minutes at the kitchen table with a pen: what’s happening this week, what you’re worried about, what can wait. Your head needs somewhere to put things that isn’t your pillow.
3. Give Sunday evening one nice thing. A bath, a walk, a phone call, the good biscuits. Something to look forward to stops the whole evening becoming the waiting room for Monday.
4. Leave the inbox until Monday. “Just checking one thing” in bed brings the whole week into the bedroom, and screens keep you alert (NHS Every Mind Matters).
5. Don’t go to bed early to “bank” sleep. Go when you’re sleepy. An extra hour lying there willing it to come just gives the list more airtime (NHS, insomnia).

If you’ve had trouble sleeping for months, or it’s making daily life hard, the NHS says to see your GP (NHS).

And for Monday night

Monday night is when the day’s leftovers come back: the thing someone said, the thing you forgot, the four days to go. Same rules, plus one: give your mind something else to follow. A slow breathing pattern like 5 finger breathing takes about a minute. Or let someone else do the talking. A calm voice in your ears asks nothing of you except to listen, which is exactly what a busy head needs at 11pm.

What I do on a Sunday (and a Monday) night

I’ll be honest, this is why I made the Unwind & Sleep Set.

When my head’s doing the full week’s to-do list at 11pm, the thing that works for me is Sleep When Your Mind Won’t Switch Off. It’s a 30-minute hypnotherapy session, voiced by Hazel Gale, made for exactly that moment: the worrying, the planning, the going over and over. 2,566 of the 2,636 women who told us said it helped. It comes in every Set as a session card: unlock your phone, tap the card on it, press play, and the phone goes face down for the night.

The Clementine sleep band is soft enough to lie on, so you can listen on your side without earbuds digging in. And if the scaries wake you at 3am, Wide Awake At 3am? is already inside the band. One press of the middle button: no phone, no app, no checking your emails “while you’re up”.

You get 30 nights to try it. If it’s not for you, send it back for your money back.

Listen to the first five minutes of _Sleep When Your Mind Won’t Switch Off_ free, or see what’s in the Set. If it’s every night, not just the start of the week, read why your mind won’t switch off.