You’ve looked forward to the weekend all week, but then you only get through half of it and start feeling anxious. Work thoughts pop up on Sunday morning, work load, to do lists and difficult colleagues. By the time you get to Sunday night, your body is tense, your chest feels heavy or your stomach is churning.
You’re drinking, binge watching netflix or comfort eating to get distract yourself, Sound familiar?
You’ve got the Sunday Scaries!
If work is stressful, then thinking about it can create intense emotions in your chest or stomach, as it looms closer. Most people describe the Sunday Scaries as like “dread” and its one of the worst aspects of work anxiety. But can you stop this work related dread from ruining your down time?
As an anxiety specialist I have worked with many, people that describe this feeling when they have the Sunday Scaries and I have taught them how to deal with the dread.
Accepting rather than avoiding
As with all anxiety symptoms, the dread feeling we get when we have the Sunday Scaries is rather unpleasant and we wish it would go away. We therefore try to ignore it, push it away, distract ourselves or react emotionally by feeling scared.
Unfortunately, all these very human and understandable responses only serve to exacerbate the feeling. We are fighting fear with fear and creating an “avoidance” cycle which doesn’t help it go away, in fact it does the opposite. Therefore, it may feel counter intuitive, but to manage anxiety, particularly that feeling of dread, we need to get closer to it. We need to accept and allow it rather than avoid it.
Don’t fight it feel it.
So how do we do that? The key is to relate to your feelings of anxiety, such as the feeling of dread in your chest, as a physical sensation. Our usual reaction is relate to it as an emotion sensation i.e. fear – which scares the hell out of us. But if we pay attention, we notice that its essentially just a physical sensation, like indigestion or belly ache. We don’t like those feelings either but they don’t scare us in the same way that dread does. When you have located the physical sensation you try to explore and sit with it as much as you are able. Often the feeling dissipates on its own, as if it just wanted to be noticed.
Try it
So if you are feeling anxious right now, and have a feeling of dread in your chest or stomach, I would like to invite you to accept and allow it rather than avoid it. But first of all, to get you in the right frame of mind, slow your system down. Maybe by noticing your feet on the floor or, more usefully, your breath. If you can focus on your breath try to slow it down a touch. Do some belly breathing (read previous post on fight and flight).
Now, when you feel ready, try to locate the anxiety. Where is it in your body? Your chest? Top of your stomach? Maybe even your throat? See if you can explore the physical sensations. If it feels too much at first, try exploring the soft edges. Just do as much as you can for now and you might be able to stay with the feeling a bit more next time. Or you may be struggling to locate the feeling in your body in the first place, which could mean more practice on body awareness could be helpful. Maybe spend a few minutes each day checking into your body and noticing what’s going on for you.
If you stay with it for a little longer, does the feeling have a colour or shape? Notice any tendency to get caught up in the thoughts that the feeling is making you have and each time return to the physical source of your anxiety. If you can, get a little closer . Really feel the feeling with your body for as long as you can. Hopefully you are finding that the feeling is more tolerable and less scary than you think and, maybe…its even disappearing?
After a while, you might find the other feelings like racing thoughts and breathlessness calm down too. Simply by accepting not avoiding; feeling instead of fighting.
Other things you can do to avoid the Sunday Scaries include making the most of your Sundays by planning rewarding activities such as days out, walks etc.
If work is generally very stressful, that it can help to learn tools to manage that such as mindfulness or compassion.
I hope you found the article useful. If you would my help please contact me to find out about my services.