When 353 people were asked to rate their typical mood on each day of the week, Monday came bottom. Then their moods were recorded as they happened. From one day to the next there was little or no difference. Asked afterwards about the Monday just gone, what they remembered matched their idea of a Monday better than it matched what they had felt on the day.
A survey of 340,000 Americans found the same thing from the other side. The end of the week and the weekend were better. For a blue Monday there was, in the words of the people who ran it, "minimal support".
Even "Blue Monday", the supposed most depressing day of the year, began as an advert. It was announced in 2005 in a travel company's press release, formula and all.
So part of what arrives on Sunday evening is the idea of Monday, and the idea is gloomier than the day.
Only part, though. Sunday night used to be normal, and for some of us it now feels like preparing for battle.
The stomach knots as the afternoon fades. We lie awake rehearsing a conversation with someone who will not listen. We live Monday's stress twice, once in advance and once when it happens. That is no trick of memory. That is a job.
This article is for both: the ordinary Sunday dip, and the working week that deserves the dread. It starts with how to tell them apart.
Monday, or the job
A dip as the weekend closes is ordinary, whatever we do for a living. When 74 people in all kinds of jobs tracked their days, mood and energy were better at weekends, for men and women alike. The reason was plain: at weekends they had more say over their own time and spent more of it with people they felt close to.
So some of Sunday's heaviness is the end of free time, and it tells us nothing about the job.
Monday has had a bad name for a long time. Craft workers skipped it so regularly, from at least the 1600s, that the habit was called Saint Monday. Benjamin Franklin, working at a London printing house as a young man, was proud of "never making a St. Monday". Even Garfield hates Mondays, and he is a cat with no job.
There is a third possibility, with an old name of its own: Sunday neurosis, the emptiness some people feel only in their free time. In that case the dip has little to do with work at all.
The other kind is different in size and in shape. It starts earlier. It sits in the body. It is still there in the middle of the weekend. If that is ours, we are having a normal human response to an abnormal place to work.
What a bad job does to the body
"Boss" is a borrowed Dutch word, baas, and its oldest root meant uncle. The idea that a hard one is only an annoyance did not survive measurement.
In Sweden, 3,122 working men rated their managers: whether they were considerate, clear about what was expected, and willing to share information and control. The men were followed for about ten years. The better a man had rated his manager, the lower his risk of heart disease, and the longer he had worked there the stronger the link.
Among 6,442 British civil servants, all of them men, those who felt fairly treated at work went on to have about a third less heart disease than those who did not. Their cholesterol, weight, blood pressure and smoking did not explain it.
And the worst of it is common. Pooled across 86 groups and 130,973 people, about 15% of workers counted as bullied at work. The figure ran from about 11% to 18%, depending on how the question was asked.
How to tell which one we have
Four questions sort the ordinary dip from the other thing.
Does it lift at the weekend? Trouble sleeping, a tight jaw, headaches or a bad stomach that carry on through the weekend mean the body is not recovering between weeks.
What are we using to get through? More alcohol in the evening or more caffeine in the morning than a year ago is information.
Who have we stopped seeing? Pulling away from friends and family to save energy for work is a cost, and it rises unnoticed.
Which way is it going? A bad month is a bad month. Asked to bend our own rules more often, watching the good people leave: those point one way.
One yes is worth watching. Three or four mean the last part of this article is ours.
What the dread costs
The dread has a price of its own, apart from anything the day does.
At night. When 37 people's sleep was recorded before a working day they were dreading, they got less deep sleep and rated their night worse. The apprehension alone was enough.
The next day. For two weeks, 240 adults reported each morning how stressful they expected the day to be, and did memory tests on their phones through the day. On mornings when they woke expecting stress, their working memory was worse later on, whether or not anything stressful happened.
There is a useful detail in that second finding. What they expected the night before made no difference. The damage came from the first thoughts of the morning.
At home. The dread does not stay with the one who has the job. When married couples sampled their saliva through the day, one partner's stress hormone rose and fell with the other's, most of all in the hours they were home together. How Stress Spreads Through Families has the rest.
So the work on Sunday is to settle Monday before bed, so that it is not waiting for us when we wake.
What the weekend is for
Rest is only part of it. When 87 emergency-service workers were followed across three rounds of questions, three things about a weekend predicted exhaustion and low spirits in the week after: hassles at home, having nothing good to think about the job, and seeing few people.
The walk with a friend on Sunday afternoon is no indulgence. It is part of how the coming week gets carried.
Why You're Always Tired: The Rest You're Missing has the four things that make time off restore us: switching off, relaxing, getting absorbed in something that stretches us, and having a say over our own time.
Sunday evening
What keeps the mind circling is unfinished business. When 103 employees were followed through 1,127 work goals, the unfinished ones were the hardest to stop thinking about in the evening. Making a plan for them helped: where, when and how each would be dealt with. It helped the people who usually find it hardest to switch off.
The best moment for Sunday's peace is the last half hour of the working week. Before we leave, we write down what is unfinished and what the first step on each will be. Then the weekend has nothing to hold.
If that moment has passed, Sunday evening will do. One page: the three things Monday needs, and the first small action on each. Then the page goes in the bag and the bag goes by the door.
One thing to leave out of the evening is the drink that takes the edge off. Alcohol helps us drop off and deepens the first half of the night, then breaks up the second half and cuts into dream sleep. 5 Ways to Harness Your Energy and Beat the Afternoon Slump has more on what steals a night.
Monday morning
The morning is where the expectation does its damage, so it gets a plan of its own.
Read the knot differently. A pounding heart before a hard day is the body getting ready, and it helps to tell ourselves so. People who were told to think of their racing pulse during a stressful task as useful had a healthier heart response than people told nothing, and their attention was less drawn to threats.
Use the journey in. Across three field tests with 1,736 people, those who spent the commute thinking through the coming working day were less worn down by a long journey: they stayed more satisfied with the job and less inclined to leave it. So the page by the door gets read on the way in, where it belongs, and stays off the pillow.
In the room
Then comes the building. Some stress has to be handled in front of other people, without anyone noticing. What follows holds up, and none of it shows.
Breathe out slowly. When about a hundred people practised one of several calming exercises for a few minutes a day for a month, the one built on long, slow out-breaths did most for their mood and slowed their breathing as well. In a meeting it fits inside note-taking: in while writing a line, out, longer, while reading it back.
Feet on the floor. Before speaking, press both feet into the ground and take one slow breath while sorting the papers. It looks like preparation, and it is.
Come back to the room. Name three things we can see and two we can hear. It gives a racing mind something present to do.
Use our own name. Across seven tests with 585 people, those who talked to themselves by name, as they would to someone else, felt less distress under social pressure and performed better than those who used "I". So in the middle of a bad meeting, our own name first, and then: "this is about their problems, not your performance."
Civil, not warm
One piece of advice gets passed around a great deal: be extra kind to difficult people and they will soften. No test of it turned up.
What has been measured is the cost to the person doing it. Pooled across 95 investigations, showing feelings we do not have went with strain and with liking the job less.
So the aim is civil. Polite, brief, professional, and no performance of affection we do not feel.
There is an honest alternative to forced cheerfulness, and it has a name. Viktor Frankl, who survived the Nazi camps, called it tragic optimism: looking for the meaning in a hard time, during it and after, without pretending that it is good. In a bad job that can be as plain as asking what this is teaching us, starting with the kind of manager we never want to become. is his account of how he came to it.
The micromanager
Confirm in writing. After a spoken instruction, send two lines: "Just to confirm, you'd like me to focus on X this week, with an update each afternoon." It gives them the record they want and gives us one too.
Update before being asked. "Project update: A and B are done, C is under way, finished by the end of the week." A short note sent first saves three interruptions.
Hand the choice back. "I want to make sure we hit the client deadline. Should I put the report first, or the presentation?" The impossible choice goes back to the person who created it.
The one who takes the credit
Follow up in writing. After the meeting: "Thanks for the session. I'll develop the client strategy we discussed and have a draft with you this week."
Copy the people who should know. "Updating you on the project we discussed. I'm handling the analysis and the client presentation."
Reclaim it plainly. In the meeting itself: "I'm glad the strategy I proposed is working well. Let me walk through the figures behind it." Factual, calm, and said once.
The one who shouts
Short and neutral. "I understand." "I'll look into that." "Thanks for the feedback." No defending, no explaining, no reasoning with someone who has lost their temper.
Write it down. When a meeting turns, take notes of exactly what is being said. It keeps the mind on a task, and it is a record.
Then recover, before doing anything else. The next section is how.
After being shouted at
We come out of a bad encounter unable to think, and take that as proof that we are not up to the job.
It has been tested. In three experiments, people who were treated rudely did worse afterwards on routine tasks and on creative ones, and became less helpful to others. It made no difference whether the rudeness came from the person in charge or from a bystander. Even imagining it was enough. The rudeness had disrupted their thinking. Being thrown by it is the expected result.
Recovery is a task, then, and it comes before the next piece of work. Leave the room. Put cold water on the face, not the wrists: the face is where the reflex lives that slows the heart, by ten to twenty-five percent. Take ten slow breaths. Then go back.
Three questions do most of the work.
"What happens if this waits until tomorrow?" A real deadline answers that. Someone else's hurry does not.
"Would I send this in an hour?" A reply written with a racing heart goes into drafts for half an hour first.
"What does my subject line do to the person reading it?" "Request for an extension on the X project" gets a calmer answer than "Urgent: problem with X".
For the inbox itself, Hidden Habits Sabotaging Your Productivity—and How to Fix Them has what happened when people checked their email three times a day.
Five things to say
When there is rent to pay, telling a difficult boss to respect our evenings can get us sacked sooner than respected. These five sentences protect our time without picking a fight. These exact words have not been tested. What they have in common is a specific offer, and a choice handed back.
For a request after hours. "I'll take a look at this first thing tomorrow morning and get back to you before lunch."
For a job that keeps growing. "I want to make sure I'm prioritising correctly. Should I finish X as planned, or shift to include Y? I can do either well, but not both by the original deadline."
For one meeting too many. "I want to be fully present for this. Could we find thirty minutes later this week when I can give it my complete attention?"
For an impossible workload. "I want to make sure I'm focusing on what matters most to you. If I can do A really well, or A, B and C poorly, which would you prefer?"
For too little time or help. "I'm committed to doing this well. Given the scope, I'll need either more time or more help. Which would work best?"
And when they push. The same sentence again, calmly: "As I mentioned, I'll be able to look at this tomorrow morning." No new arguments.
For the conversations these do not cover, is a book-length course in the harder ones. For holding a line once it is drawn, there is Nedra Glover Tawwab's .
When to leave
These tactics buy time. They do not mend a workplace.
There is a belief that keeps people in bad jobs longer than anything else: that any job is better than none. It has been measured, twice.
In Australia, 7,155 people of working age were followed through seven yearly surveys. On average the unemployed had worse mental health than the employed. But those in the poorest-quality jobs, with heavy demands, little say, no security and unfair pay, were no better off than the unemployed, and their mental health declined faster.
In Britain, 1,116 unemployed adults were followed as some found work. Those who moved into poor-quality jobs ended up with worse markers of long-term stress in their blood than those who stayed unemployed.
None of this means walking out tomorrow. It means the question "can I cope?" has a partner: "what is coping costing?" If the four questions near the top came back yes, the plan to leave is part of looking after ourselves. An updated CV, one conversation a week, a date in mind.
Two things can change the timetable. One is burnout. Everything above assumes there is something left in the tank. Exhaustion, a growing distance from the job and getting less done are its three signs, and Finding Balance: 8 Ways to a Healthier Work-Life Dynamic, linked below, has what to do about it.
The other is bullying. If that is what is happening, there may be a formal route as well as a private one. In Britain the official advice runs in three steps: try to sort it out informally; if that fails, go to a manager, to HR or to a union representative; and if that fails, make a formal complaint through the employer's grievance procedure. Other countries have their own routes, and it is worth an hour to find ours.
And when the next job comes into view, the Swedish findings give us five things to ask about the person we would be working for. Are they considerate? Are they clear about what is expected? Do they share information and give feedback? Can they carry a change through? Do they let people have a say? The men whose managers did those things had less heart disease ten years on.
Tonight
The Monday in our heads is gloomier than the ones we live through. For some jobs it is every bit as bad, and the body has been saying so.
Either way the next move is the same, and it is small. Take one page. Write the three things tomorrow needs and the first step on each. Put it by the door.
Then let Sunday be Sunday.
Is the hard part saying no at all? 5 Types of Boundaries for Healthier, Happier Relationships — what a boundary is, why yes comes out when we mean no, and how to set one that holds.
Is work taking the evenings as well? Finding Balance: 8 Ways to a Healthier Work-Life Dynamic — drawing a line around the working day, switching off, and what to do when it is burnout.
Know someone who goes quiet on Sunday afternoons? Send them this, and ask them the four questions.
Disclaimer: This article is general information about stress at work. For advice about your own health or your rights at work, talk to a qualified professional. If your mood has been low for weeks or you're having thoughts of harming yourself, reach out for help today.
Affiliate Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, All For Life earns from qualifying purchases, at no extra cost to you. We only link to products we would recommend without the commission.
Sources
Areni CS, Burger M (2008). Memories of "Bad" Days Are More Biased Than Memories of "Good" Days: Past Saturdays Vary, but Past Mondays Are Always Blue. Journal of Applied Social Psychology 38(6):1395–1415. doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2008.00353.x
Stone AA, Schneider S, Harter JK (2012). Day-of-week mood patterns in the United States: On the existence of 'Blue Monday', 'Thank God it's Friday' and weekend effects. The Journal of Positive Psychology 7(4):306–314. doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2012.691980
Wikipedia. Blue Monday (date). en.wikipedia.org
Ryan RM, Bernstein JH, Brown KW (2010). Weekends, Work, and Well-Being: Psychological Need Satisfactions and Day of the Week Effects on Mood, Vitality, and Physical Symptoms. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 29(1):95–122. doi.org/10.1521/jscp.2010.29.1.95
Wikipedia. Saint Monday. en.wikipedia.org
Wikipedia. Garfield. en.wikipedia.org
Wikipedia. Existential crisis. en.wikipedia.org
Wiktionary. boss. en.wiktionary.org
Nyberg A, Alfredsson L, Theorell T, et al. (2009). Managerial leadership and ischaemic heart disease among employees: the Swedish WOLF study. Occupational and Environmental Medicine 66(1):51–55. doi.org/10.1136/oem.2008.039362
Kivimäki M, Ferrie JE, Brunner E, et al. (2005). Justice at work and reduced risk of coronary heart disease among employees: the Whitehall II Study. Archives of Internal Medicine 165(19):2245–2251. doi.org/10.1001/archinte.165.19.2245
Nielsen MB, Matthiesen SB, Einarsen S (2010). The impact of methodological moderators on prevalence rates of workplace bullying. A meta-analysis. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology 83(4):955–979. doi.org/10.1348/096317909X481256
Kecklund G, Åkerstedt T (2004). Apprehension of the subsequent working day is associated with a low amount of slow wave sleep. Biological Psychology 66(2):169–176. doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2003.10.004
Hyun J, Sliwinski MJ, Smyth JM (2019). Waking Up on the Wrong Side of the Bed: The Effects of Stress Anticipation on Working Memory in Daily Life. The Journals of Gerontology: Series B 74(1):38–46. doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gby042
Saxbe D, Repetti RL (2010). For better or worse? Coregulation of couples' cortisol levels and mood states. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 98(1):92–103. doi.org/10.1037/a0016959
Fritz C, Sonnentag S (2005). Recovery, Health, and Job Performance: Effects of Weekend Experiences. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology 10(3):187–199. doi.org/10.1037/1076-8998.10.3.187
Sonnentag S, Fritz C (2007). The Recovery Experience Questionnaire: development and validation of a measure for assessing recuperation and unwinding from work. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology 12(3):204–221. doi.org/10.1037/1076-8998.12.3.204
Smit BW (2016). Successfully leaving work at work: The self-regulatory underpinnings of psychological detachment. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology 89(3):493–514. doi.org/10.1111/joop.12137
Ebrahim IO, Shapiro CM, Williams AJ, Fenwick PB (2013). Alcohol and sleep I: effects on normal sleep. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research 37(4):539–549. doi.org/10.1111/acer.12006
Jamieson JP, Nock MK, Mendes WB (2012). Mind over matter: Reappraising arousal improves cardiovascular and cognitive responses to stress. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 141(3):417–422. doi.org/10.1037/a0025719
Jachimowicz JM, Cunningham JL, Staats BR, Gino F, Menges JI (2021). Between Home and Work: Commuting as an Opportunity for Role Transitions. Organization Science 32(1):64–85. doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2020.1370
Balban MY, Neri E, Kogon MM, et al. (2023). Brief structured respiration practices enhance mood and reduce physiological arousal. Cell Reports Medicine 4(1):100895. doi.org/10.1016/j.xcrm.2022.100895
Kross E, Bruehlman-Senecal E, Park J, et al. (2014). Self-talk as a regulatory mechanism: How you do it matters. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 106(2):304–324. doi.org/10.1037/a0035173
Hülsheger UR, Schewe AF (2011). On the costs and benefits of emotional labor: A meta-analysis of three decades of research. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology 16(3):361–389. doi.org/10.1037/a0022876
Wikipedia. Toxic positivity. en.wikipedia.org
Wikiquote. Viktor Frankl. en.wikiquote.org
Porath CL, Erez A (2007). Does Rudeness Really Matter? The Effects of Rudeness on Task Performance and Helpfulness. Academy of Management Journal 50(5):1181–1197. doi.org/10.5465/amj.2007.20159919
Wikipedia. Diving reflex. en.wikipedia.org
Butterworth P, Leach LS, Strazdins L, et al. (2011). The psychosocial quality of work determines whether employment has benefits for mental health: results from a longitudinal national household panel survey. Occupational and Environmental Medicine 68(11):806–812. doi.org/10.1136/oem.2010.059030
Chandola T, Zhang N (2018). Re-employment, job quality, health and allostatic load biomarkers: prospective evidence from the UK Household Longitudinal Study. International Journal of Epidemiology 47(1):47–57. doi.org/10.1093/ije/dyx150
World Health Organization (2019). Burn-out an "occupational phenomenon": International Classification of Diseases. who.int
GOV.UK. Workplace bullying and harassment. gov.uk