Picture this Sunday. You've had a nice weekend, maybe some family time, home time, couch time, outside time, sleeping in...whatever it is, you're feeling good about it. But then a familiar feeling starts to creep in on Sunday evening, and you start to feel real anxious about Monday.

I've felt that too, but I didn't know it had a name. Have you ever heard of the "Sunday scaries"? It's a thing, but there are some tips and tricks out there to help you start the week on the right foot, and I've got an expert with me to help: Dr. Jessica Stern, clinical psychologist at the Steven A. Cohen Military Family Center at NYU Langone Psychiatry Associates.

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Every Wednesday morning at 8:30 CST, Jill Riley connects with experts and local personalities for some real talk about keeping our minds and bodies healthy — from staying safe in the music scene, to exercising during a pandemic, to voting and civic engagement. Looking for more resources and support? Visit our friends at Call to Mind, MPR's initiative to foster new conversations about mental health. Subscribe to Wellness Wednesday as a podcast on Spotify, Apple, RSS, Radio Public, Stitcher, or Amazon Music.

Jill Riley: So what exactly are we talking about here with the "Sunday scaries"? What does that mean?

Jessica Stern: "Sunday scaries," I like to think of as sort of a collection of feelings that people tend to feel on Sunday afternoon or Sunday evening, sometimes it can creep in a little bit earlier. These feelings tend to be tend to include a sense of worry or fear or dread, oftentimes overwhelming: basically, anticipation of what's going to be coming up in the next week. Sometimes there's also a little bit of sadness over the end of the weekend and feeling like, you know, the good times or the freedom or whatever it was that was happening for you on that weekend are coming to an end.

What oftentimes happens for people is they feel overwhelmed and anxious about starting the new week, and all the responsibilities that come into play: work, school, caring for family, etc. Oftentimes what happens is the Sunday scaries can hit really quickly, sometimes unexpectedly — and for many people, actually, sometimes cyclically, meaning they come back more or less in the same way every week. It can be really dreadful for a lot of people: really overwhelming, and can really bring people down.

So this really sounds like a relatable thing. I'll even use myself as an example: just knowing the alarm clock is going to go off at four. I enjoy my job as a radio host, but I start thinking about everything that I've got coming up in the next two weeks. So this does sound really relatable. Is this a pretty common thing?

Very common. It's extremely common. It's something that can hit people in many different ways...and regardless of how you're doing in terms of your mental health, or how much you love your job, or how much you love your family, it can really happen to anybody. There's really no shame in it, despite the fact that it can be pretty uncomfortable and pretty overwhelming, but it is most definitely a very common phenomenon.

What have you found to be the main triggers?

Mondays really feel for a lot of people like you have to hit the ground running, and because it's the sort of the opening gate for the week, it can feel overwhelming, where all of these things that you need to do either need to get done Monday morning, or that's your go-go-go time, which is why it can really hit strongly for a lot of people on Sunday evening. Common triggers can be a couple of different things.

For a lot of people, it's a sense of overwhelm about all the things that need to get done during that week, so it can be work-related. It can be school-related, it can be attending to responsibilities for yourself or for your family. For a lot of people it's related to a sense of overwhelm at work and potentially burnout.

You know, burnout is something we're hearing a lot about these days, and people are talking a lot about. If you're feeling overwhelmed at the workplace, if you're feeling anxious at the workplace, that can be a prime trigger for Sunday scaries. Especially if you have a lot going on at work or school related to, you know, bosses, supervisors, deadlines, those types of things, it can feel almost like the sense of priority is striking in a way that's overpowering, and you have to make sure that you get everything done. Sometimes it's just home life responsibilities or personal responsibilities. You know, we tend to do a lot of our sort of lifestyle care during the week — so attending, you know, doctor's appointments or going to the mechanic or whatever. It might be getting the kids ready for school or for camp. So, it's oftentimes overwhelming because people have to attend to all of these different facets of their life and have to fit them all like a big puzzle where maybe that wasn't necessarily happening over the weekend, and the weekend was a time for leisure and relaxation and rejuvenation...which is not necessarily the case for everybody, but it's often true For a lot of people.

I like to feel a sense of leisure on a Sunday, and nothing ruins a good Sunday like me starting to think about Monday. So I just wonder, is there something that I could be doing or listeners could be doing to better manage that feeling of anxiety on a Sunday?

Yeah, I love the way you just put that. As a psychologist who does a lot of therapy for anxiety, thinking about it as managing it rather than avoiding it is a fantastic way to put it. Because sometimes when we fight an anxiety, it actually surges a little bit higher and comes back with full force. Navigating it actually gives you control over your anxiety, which is a pretty cool thing. It's very empowering.

So there are a couple things that people can do. What I would say is, if you can give yourself a sense of control and empowerment over your Monday, rather than that sense of dread, that can be really helpful. What I like to encourage people to do is think about how they can prepare for the week. Maybe that means doing some meal prep for the week, maybe that means picking out your outfits for the week, or looking at the week ahead in terms of your calendar...spending, it can be anywhere from five minutes to an hour where you can go to sleep knowing that you have some sort of game plan going into your week. That can be really helpful, because it gives you a little bit less pressure to have to figure it all out Monday morning. For lot of people there's nothing worse than having to rush to all the things they need to do without having a game plan. So if game plans work for you, I would definitely recommend setting some time for you on a Sunday. It could even be Saturday morning, if you want to get it behind you and give yourself the rest of the weekend. Just give yourself an opportunity to prepare for the week.

Yeah, I hear you on that. Because if I know that, you know Monday morning is going to be a mess it is it not only sets up the day to be a mess, but the week to be a mess. I don't want to start the week on that note. So it really sounds like having this routine or a plan is just really critical to not avoiding the kind of managing this "Sunday scaries" phenomenon that a lot of us deal with.

Absolutely — and turning it into a routine then essentially becomes a reflex, which makes it so much easier. If you more or less do the same thing every week, it starts to become second nature and starts to get a lot more comfortable and you can strategize and figure out what works best for you. For some people, they want to have a really relaxing Sunday evening where they're watching movies or they're going out or whatever it means. So maybe that means you doing your planning Sunday morning so you get it out of the way. Knowing yourself and your schedule and your tendencies, you can be flexible with it and just fit it into wherever you feel like makes most sense for you and your lifestyle.

Wellness Wednesday is hosted by Jill Riley, and produced by Anna Weggel and Jay Gabler. Our theme music is a portion of the song "F.B. One Number 2" by Christian Bjoerklund under the Non Commercial Share Alike 3.0 International License. This week's photo is by marimnz (CC BY-NC 2.0). The image was altered: it was cropped, filtered to greyscale, and supplemented with a logo.