Beat the Sunday Blues

The weekdays fly by and Saturdays are always packed with errands, movies, soccer games, dates, car washes, the works! And then Sunday is filled with… well, Sunday. It’s just the day of rest, but why can it be such a mournful time?

Perhaps it’s the countdown to Monday morning that rains over Sunday. Maybe it’s the melancholy that another week of life has gone by. Maybe it’s the knowledge that our Sundays are numbered and wait… this isn’t helping at all!

The only real problem with Sunday is how we think of it. We’re all creatures of habit and some of us having spent our childhoods thinking of Sundays as a day of family obligations or long hours in church services may have worn a groove of the Sunday blahs in our heads early on. Others who didn’t look forward to school on Mondays may feel a letdown the day before the work week begins again.

We have 52 Sundays a year – that’s a lot of days to dread and a lot of time to waste. Or it’s a lot of time to enjoy, savor and cherish. They are your Sundays, so take them back and make them all that they can be by insisting that they’re not going to get you down.

Try these tips to bust through the loneliest day of the week and turn your Sunday into a fun day!

Take 60… give into gloom
Yes, time is flying by. Yes, life didn’t turn out the way you expected it to. Yes, that is a gray hair. And another one. Okay, everything is melancholy with rain on the windowpane. You can wallow all you want, for about an hour. Go ahead, crack open some ice cream. Google your ex. Try on your “skinny” clothes. Whatever you need to do to get the darkness out of your system – do it. Get it out because the rest of the day is for a new attitude. It’s always darkest before the dawn so pull the shades and blow up those black balloons… when you are done there are 23 hours left of Sunday and you’re going to make the most of them!

A Sunday exclusive
We all have that one special thing we do for ourselves – perhaps it’s a manicure, a yoga class, the farmer’s market, an old movie or a couple of hours on the driving range. Pick something you enjoy and decide that the only day of the week you are “allowed” to do it is on Sunday. If you let Sunday be one vast open “nothing” day week after week, of course you are going to feel like you are dropping into a void. But by making Sundays the day you get to spend an hour at the spa/ hit the back nine / take the sailboat out – pretty soon your Saturday nights will feel exciting because you have something to look forward to. Even if you don’t hit your fun spot every Sunday, just the idea that this day is now for frivolous fun will turn your mood around. Plan it! Mark your calendar and look forward to the thing that you get to do on Sunday. Make it a good one because (no surprise) Sunday comes around at the end of every week.

Pick your true family
Sundays tend to either be over-filled with family obligations that drag the day out or completely devoid of obligation, which manages to also drag the day out. But maybe there is something between these two extremes that can pick Sunday up and put it back on its feet. What if you could choose your family from your closest friends? Chances are, there are other people in your life who get the Sunday blues, too. Reach out and declare the last Sunday of the month your own traditional “family dinner.” Make it potluck, friends welcome and perhaps the location rotates among the group. More and more people don’t live near family but that doesn’t mean we don’t need a family. Take back Sunday for you and your family of choice.

Blast into the week
Yes, no matter how fun Sunday is, Monday is the very next day. If you’re a worker-bee, looking forward to another whirlwind of clocking in and clocking out can feel like your very life is slipping away. So end your Sunday with a spiritual take-over. When you look forward to the week, what images come to mind? Do you see yourself fighting traffic, swallowing your opinions at work, exhausted every night? Well, what we see – we create. Turn it around and see yourself getting to work right on time, easily. Smile when you think about a great contribution you are going to make this week. Make Sunday the paintbrush that colors the rest of the week fabulous.

Sundays can be bittersweet, as they can feel like the end of something good. Use that little bit of knowledge that time is passing to remind yourself not to let another Sunday go by without planning to make the most of every moment.