Hello, and happy Monday 🙂 

How are you feeling at the start of another week? Sad that the weekend is over, or are you maybe relieved?

If you’re feeling relieved and maybe even happy to be back at work, you’re not alone. For many of us, the weekends (assuming you get them and whenever they may fall in the week for you) can present as obstacles to overcome rather than opportunities to rest and relax.

This can seem confusing and counterintuitive because there are plenty of articles and research suggesting that we need weekends to unwind after the workweek. Some people are even advocating for a permanent three-day weekend to help reduce overall stress levels.

And while there is nothing like a three-day weekend when you really need it (and maybe also know in advance how you’re going to spend it), there can also be times in life when we dread the weekend.

Staring Into an Abyss

The unstructured nature or aimlessness of a weekend can be challenging to navigate if, say, we also happen to be struggling with mental health issues or life challenges like depression, anxiety or grief.

Or maybe our life circumstances contribute to feeling more isolated on the weekends, or maybe it’s difficult to spend that much time at home because of tough relationship dynamics.

The workweek typically presents opportunities for distraction and “staying busy” when we don’t want to think about certain things or be confronted with difficult emotions stemming from painful aspects of life.

For example, if we’re dealing with anxiety, we might find ourselves overthinking what we “should” be doing on a weekend, maybe beating ourselves up for not doing enough or for not living up to an external standard of what a weekend “should” look like.

Or, if we’re struggling with depression or grief, we may not want to be alone with our own thoughts or we might find it difficult to sit with the “quietness” or “emptiness” of downtime or time without a loved one. (The opposite can also be true—that we may lean into the weekend when feeling depressed, wanting to isolate more—it may just depend.)

So, what can you do?

If you find yourself dreading the weekend, here are a couple of things to try:

1. Cut Yourself Some Slack

It’s OK to hate the weekend sometimes. It doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with you.

If we invalidate our feelings or our authentic experiences (re: disliking weekends), then that can make us feel worse.

Being able to validate our own experience is similar to running into a friend at an event and discovering that you both don’t want to be there but attended out of a sense of obligation. You’re already there, so you likely have to stay and get through it, but knowing that someone else feels similarly can bring a huge sense of relief.

The same thing can happen when we validate ourselves and our own experiences—we feel relief. Whereas if we deny our feelings or even beat ourselves up for the way we’re feeling, we’re essentially invalidating ourselves and that can make us feel worse than we already do.

So, can you allow for your authentic feelings to be present and not try and run from or discount them? You don’t have to stew in the feelings or feed into them. Instead, can you notice them and try and self-soothe in the moment?

(If you find it challenging to identify ways to self-soothe, one trick can be to think of how you might comfort a kid who was feeling similar. You’re probably not going to tell the kid to “Just get over it,” or minimize their feelings. Ideally, you’d want to validate the feelings and then help them focus on something that will assist them to feel better in the moment.)

2. Structure Some Things In

This may seem like an obvious solution, but sometimes if we’re stuck in an anxiety/worry loop or feeling overwhelmed, it can be easy to forget to make plans or even think about the things that we enjoy doing.

If you notice yourself starting to anticipate or feel anxious about the upcoming weekend and the seemingly vast amount of time to fill, can you try and come up with some things you could or might even want to do?

It doesn’t have to be anything big or super involved. It could be things like cleaning (maybe just start with one room of your house/apartment), calling a friend, trying a new recipe, starting or finishing a book, practicing an instrument, etc.

Even if you just make a list of some things that you could do, you’re breaking the repeating circuit of dread and introducing something new for your mind to focus on.

In other words, if panic about the weekend starts to creep in, we can disrupt it by changing our focus from what we’re worried about to things that we do have some control over.

It may not solve the entire situation, but it might bring in some relief.

Additional Takes on the ‘Weekend Blues’

“Weekend anxiety: Are you dreading time off?” via the Daily Telegraph in Australia
A look at why it may be challenging for those who identify as workaholics or perfectionists to enjoy the weekend.

“Read This If You Get Anxiety About What To Do On Weekends” via Refinery 29
A member of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America provides tips for managing anxiety around weekends.

“Are Friday Scaries A Thing? How I’m Managing Weekend Anxiety” via The Good Trade
A personal take on the push-pull between introversion and extroversion and how it can affect weekends.

“It's Not Unusual To Dislike Weekends When You're Lonely Or Have Mental Health Struggles” via Succeed Socially
More tips on how to cope with weekend dread.