“I Hate Mondays” is more than a meme or notable quote from Garfield (we just dated ourselves with that last one). It’s the January of weekdays, the first careless sip of scalding hot soup, the 20-minutes of ads that play before the trailers in a movie theater. Even worse, is that there are 52 of them…every single year of our lives.
All levity aside, the first day of modern society’s work week weighs heavy on the minds of the American populous. You know the routine all too well. The feeling begins to creep-in as you awake on Sunday morning. Instead of enjoying a day of rest a pest festers in the back of your mind, with each passing hour being a reminder that the dreaded day is one tick closer. You’ve grown weary of the viscous cycle and want to do something about its ability to rob you of happiness. The issue, is that you can’t leave the thing that makes Monday, well, Monday. You can’t quit your job, studies, or other responsibilities that establish the aggravating routine. The good news, is that there are immediate steps to take to hop-off the hamster wheel that troubles you so.
8 Powerful Steps to Overcoming the Monday Mental Health Burden and Lead a Much Happier Life
But First, is Monday Mental Health a Real Problem?
Before we get to your support program, we must first address what some call the myth of Monday blues. It’s no myth. While not a clinical disorder, it’s real enough because people (yourself included) feel it. For most, it’s a relatively mild to moderate burden, but for others feelings may manifest with more serious consequences. Researchers have found that rates of STEMI heart attacks (which are linked to anxiety and depression) are significantly higher on Mondays when compared to all other days of the week. Further, a large collection of international studies confirm that Monday is consistently associated with higher rates of self harm and suicidality. Again, your weekly struggle may not be quite so daunting, but the weight of the day certainly deserves calculated attention.
1. Establish a Happy Neurotransmitter-Inducing Monday AM Routine
Neurotransmitters including dopamine, norepinephrine, endorphines, oxytocin, and serotonin are naturally occurring in the body and promote feelings of wellness. There are good ways to increase levels of these happy neurotransmitters, and problematic ways. Examples of the latter include substance use and participation in activities that are associated with the development of harmful compulsive behavior among vulnerable populations such as gambling, gaming, and porn consumption. Logically, one should avoid these behaviors as a means to defeat negative Monday feelings which can be harmful, fleeting, and not very practical in a professional or educational setting.
As a preferred alternative, look to healthier methods of promoting the release of feel good neurotransmitters after waking on Monday. Morning physical fitness activities, including a combination of cardiovascular/aerobic/endurance exercise and weight lifting collectively deliver spikes in endorphins, dopamine, oxytocin, norepinephrine, and serotonin. Further, an extra 15-minutes of time outdoors is known to reduce the stress hormone cortisol and boost beneficial neurotransmitters. A morning jog to/from the gym will go a long way towards accomplishing this goal. If you’re looking for something more substantial to try, consider a regular Monday morning cold plunge. Research shows that whole body immersion in very cold water triggers the release of the aforementioned neurotransmitters and subsequently may support emotion regulation, stress regulation, and reward processing. The temperature range required to get the benefits is between 40-60 degrees Fahrenheit (lowering as you get accustomed to the process). Instead of an ice bath, you may consider joining surfers or swimmers if you live near the ocean where dawn-patrol temperatures land in the preferred range.
If you don’t typically have the time, or access, to allow a cold plunge or gym visit, exercises such as diaphragmatic breathing can supplement your need to stimulate the release of dopamine and help reset your brain in a positive direction:
- Sit or lie-down in a comfortable space and close your eyes.
- Place one hand on your chest and the other hand on your abdomen.
- Inhale through your nose for approximately 4-seconds as you feel your abdomen expand.
- Hold your breath for 2-seconds, then exhale slowly and steadily through your mouth for about 6-seconds.
- Repeat the process from anywhere between 5 and 15 minutes. Your mind and body will let you know when you have calmed down sufficiently to move on to the next step.
2. Establish a New (and Positive) Email Protocol in Your Workplace or Group
One of the biggest causations of Monday dread is the email inbox that awaits. Research shows that checking email is one of the most stressful parts of the day, even if not technically time consuming. All the breathing exercises in the world can’t fully prepare you for a particularly triggering email from a colleague. But what is sent your way isn’t completely out of your control. There is a practical way to get past this.
Channel your inner Michael Scott and call everyone into the conference room (on-premises or otherwise) at your place of work (etc.) to discuss how you can collectively establish a more positive and productive email/communication protocol. In doing so you will not only make Mondays more pleasurable for yourself, but everyone else in the organization/group. The following are simple adjustments that can be made to common email communications that will make that first Monday AM review more pleasant:
- Use positive words in subject lines: This is the first thing that people see in their inbox.
- Start the message with positive words: A simple “Good Morning (name)!” and “Hope you had an awesome weekend” goes a long way in setting the tone for the remainder of the email. Sign-off with positivity too.
- No-non-critical emails before noon (on Monday): This gives everyone a chance to settle into the day without being inundated with non-important emails to respond to.
3. Minimize Screen Time on Sundays and Mondays
A univariate analyses between screen time and depression indicates that individuals who spend more than 4 hours per day viewing a digital screen are more likely to be diagnosed with moderate or severe depression than those who spent less than 4 hours per day doing the same. While this may not be a cause-and-effect relationship, try limiting your screen time on Sunday so that you set the table for more positive feelings in the day to follow. Also limit screen time on Monday to see if you stay in a more positive “flow state”. Once you’ve checked your more productive emails (as per section 2 above) use the remainder of Monday for creative brainstorming and focus on the big picture items instead of getting bogged down in the matrix.
4. Add an Enjoyable Afterwork Activity to Mondays
The anticipation of Monday (more on this in section 6 below) and the workload ahead plays a role in how you feel about it. By adding a highly enjoyable activity to the end of the day as a “reward”, and making it a part of your weekly agenda. you give yourself something to look forward to. As the weeks pass your brain will become accustomed to the new schedule and learn to eagerly anticipate Mondays. Or at least make it easier to tackle the day with a grin.
This enjoyable activity must be associated with minimal risk of harm. Drinks at the bar with coworkers or associates can be habitual and can form a compulsion for vulnerable persons. This tip circles back to section 1 where we recommend selecting healthy activities that promote good feeling neurotransmitters. That being said, you needn’t repeat your morning routine, as variety is important to maintaining excitement about something. If inclined, a creative endeavor can do the job just fine. Monday afternoons/evenings can become your time for painting, photography, sculpting, crafting, making, or other imaginative and inventive rituals.
Or, if your Monday dread is connected to a lack of enthusiasm (or outright distaste) in your current vocation, set aside Monday evenings to work exclusively on what you are passionate about, something that may lead to your desired career or entrepreneurial endeavor. As each week progresses you will chip away at the new life goal, which will make each Monday to follow more exciting than the last. It’s also worth noting that high levels of dopamine are known to influence the factors that define an entrepreneur, which may provide a reciprocal benefit.
5. Get it Done (or some of it) on Friday
Many people take their foot off the gas on Fridays as they wind down in preparation for an evening and weekend of leisure. If this sounds familiar, we suggest that you get ahead of your upcoming workload with by leveraging some of that Friday idle time. There’s practical logic in getting a head start in anything, but researchers speculate on the psychology behind the Friday-Monday connection:
“When employees encounter a stressor on Friday, knowing they are about to get a recovery break over the weekend, the loss of resources is less of a problem, and they are therefore better able to handle or even ignore the stressor (e.g., ignore uncivil behavior), knowing their exposure to the stressor is about to end for the week. On Monday, on the other hand, the stressors that they encounter have the potential to linger over the following days, and employees may perceive their own ability to cope with those stressors (without having a chance to fully recover) as lower, and consequently appraise the stressors as more severe and experience less job satisfaction in response.” (Sage Journals)
If your Mondays are typically spent preparing articles, presentations, reports, emails, and other less inspiring duties, put a dent in them on Fridays after your normal workload. Even if you must to wait until until the weekend is over to complete a standard Monday task (i.e. you require information to be gathered from Saturday/Sunday) you can at least create the templates for those aforementioned articles, presentations, reports, emails or whatever else applies to your work or field of study.
6. Regulate Weekend Sleeping and Eating Habits
Dramatic shifts in sleep schedules and dietary intake which commonly occur on weekends have something to do with negative feelings on Monday. If you sleep-in two hours (or more) later on Saturday and Sunday than you normally do during the week, the odds of waking up unrested on Monday morning are particularly high. Meanwhile, if you consume foods and beverages that are high in sugar, you will experience fleeting dopamine spikes that will come crashing down through the night on Sunday, leaving you depleted on Monday morning. We’re not suggesting that you don’t indulge on the weekends, but avoid overly dramatic shifts from your normal routine.
7. Adjust Your Mindset to “Mondays Rule”
Simply buying into the concept that Mondays are the worst can result in a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you go into any scenario expecting the worst, that expectation is rarely disappointed. If you expect the Monday morning commute to be jammed with bad drivers, you’ll be more likely to perceive others actions on the road as being poor. If you expect a coworker to rub you the wrong way when we you get to the office, you’ll be more likely to find fault in the first interaction with them. Everything above will help you adjust your Monday mindset, while the eighth and final step below will seal the deal.
8. Address Underlying Issues and Feel Better with Regular Counseling
Monday mental health challenges can be about more than normal work/study stressors. For some, there are underlying mental or behavioral health issues at play. For instance, feelings of anxiety may be rooted in general anxiety disorder (GAD) and feelings of depression may be founded in depressive disorder and/or other concerns that are known to cooccur with either. It’s a good idea to discover where you stand. A comprehensive mental health assessment to help you understand your personal mental health status, and get you matched with a care provider in your area who will initiate a formal care plan tailored to your needs, designed by you, and your care provider. And even if your current relationship with Mondays is related to surface level work/study stressors, weekly counseling will help you reframe feelings and emotions in a positive and productive way.
With the Kindbridge virtual platform you can schedule your weekly/monthly sessions for whenever is most convenient for you, including Monday mornings.
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