Sunday Night Blues: Why You Feel So Sad & How to Fix It

“I hate Sundays. Why do I feel so sad?”

It’s 5pm, and you have a case of the Sunday Blues.

What was once an expansive weekend full of promise has come to a cruel end. The shadow of Monday looms over your last bit of freedom, ruining any chance you had at relaxation. 

The Sunday Night Blues is a feeling of dread, anxiety, and sadness that comes over you on Sunday afternoon or evening. It is also known as Sunday Night Depression, and psychologists tend classify it at “situational depression”, or a depression that happens as a reaction to your circumstances and goes away when the circumstances do.

Whatever you call it, it’s a real thing. 78% of people get it, according to a Monster poll, and of the Sunday sufferers, 62% get it “really bad”.

There can be a few reasons for the Sunday Night Blues. Because it comes with the realisation that the weekend is coming to a close, you could be:

Richard Williamson realised that, after 15 years in marketing, he couldn’t enjoy Sundays any more because he dreaded Monday. “It got to the point where I started to feel down on Saturdays, too, knowing that Monday was just one day away. I changed careers, going completely a different direction: law enforcement. That lasted 8 years, until I was injured on duty and had to return to an office environment.” Now, he’s a VP of Marketing by day, and he also consults and coaches people transitioning from a career to a business startup or going into entrepreneurship. 

For some, such as Lexie Graff, it can be a crippling situation with mental health implications. When her role as a hygiene assistant at a dental practice changed, it started affecting the rest of her life.

She’s now a certified life coach with her own business, Make the Uncomfortable Comfortable, and says she wishes she’d make a change sooner.

While it can be fixed, it’s important to recognise how it’s affecting you. The Sunday Blues is a very real thing, and one that can have a long-term effect on your life.

The good news is that there are some simple ways to fix the Sunday Night Blues if it’s caused by your habits or schedule, and not a symptom of something deeper.

And if they don’t, you know you’ve tried the most general suggestions around, and that it might be time to make a more serious change.

There are a few things which, if you knock them out on Friday afternoon before you leave, can clear some mental space over the weekend and allow you to relax.

Set yourself up for the weekend on Saturday morning so you can enjoy the rest of your time off.

Try thinking of Sunday night as just another night in your life, rather than the end of the weekend or the start of the next week. This means recognising that not everything has to be done tonight, and that you can space some of the dull or stressful tasks out over the week. If you start to feel down, try these strategies:

If you’re suffering from Sunday night anxiety because you’re dreading Monday morning, then no matter what you do, it won’t go away. You’ve tried all the recommended methods, but it’s starting to feel like treating the symptoms and ignoring the cause. 

Igor Mitic, co-founder of Fortunly.com, says that while Sundays are tough for everyone, there’s a difference between the usual blues and ones that signal you need a bigger change. “If you feel lazy and less motivated to prepare yourself for work, then your Sunday Blues is telling you that you need a career change,” he says.

A bad boss can also be a big cause of the Sunday Blues. Richard Williamson says “90% of the people I work with are building their own companies not because they get Sunday Blues due to their careers, but rather because of their bosses.” A bad boss isn’t all bad, though – it might mean a change of companies, but essentially keeping the same job.

Jess English, now a Registered Dietitian and founder of >Level Up Nutrition in the UK, says she knew things weren’t sitting right in her job as Cabin Crew ten years ago. Even though “crew basically don’t have Sundays,” she found herself with the nagging feeling that she didn’t want to be in the same position in a few years – or even months. Her best advice? “It’s never too early to start looking around.” If you’re suffering from chronic Sunday Night Blues, she urges you to “do your research, pester people for information about their roles (the worst they can do is not reply!), volunteer if you can, email and dig to find out what exactly would be involved in making the change.”