"A case of the Mondays," a term the 1999 movie Office Space popularized, describes the somber and sad feelings people feel that are triggered by the beginning of the workweek. When those feelings set in Sunday evening or start to show up in the middle of Sunday brunch, mental health experts label that melancholic mood the Sunday scaries.
In the PsychCentral article "What Are the Sunday Scaries?," Divya Robin, a New York psychotherapist who specializes in anxiety issues, defines the feelings as "the anticipatory anxiety, fear, or worry that you feel before starting a new week." She notes that it is not a clinical anxiety diagnosis. The article lists a variety of causes, which range from impending deadlines and lack of a healthy work-life balance to mental health conditions, such as generalized anxiety disorder. Other terms people use to describe Sunday scaries, according to the article, are Sunday blues, Sunday syndrome, and Sunday night syndrome.
To cope, consider self-care routines such as catching up on TV shows or taking a candlelit bath. But when self-care fails and the Sunday scaries adversely affect your work performance or personal life, Robin says that's when therapy could be a beneficial solution.
