Do you suffer from the Sunday night blues?

The weekend is not yet over and you already regret it and are demoralized at the idea of ​​starting a new week. A state of mind that is anything but rare.

Does putting a name to things really soften them? We like to talk about Sunday evening blues to describe this depressing state of mind which, very often, invades us while we are still resting.

Blurred borders

Can we put an end to the Sunday evening blues, to which Florian Ferreri, professor of psychiatry at Saint-Antoine hospital, recently devoted a book(1) ? It’s probably not that obvious. Moreover, if this is the case for you, you are far from being alone: ​​one in two French people would be subject to it.

In the past, after Sunday lunch chicken and visits to relatives, came the Sunday movie ritual for those who were old enough not to have to go to bed early, school on Monday morning obliges. Now, in these times when the line between professional and personal life has largely blurred, families often live too far away to visit their loved ones on Sunday, and the ritual of checking office emails tends to replace the evening of TV. …

A regret in anticipation

Which undoubtedly adds to the feeling of blues, of depression, which takes hold of us at the idea of ​​the end of the weekend and the obligation to return to the office. The passage of the pandemic and confinements has undoubtedly also increased the feeling, for many, of losing one’s life in gaining it. From there to saying that our professional life does not make us that happy, there is probably only one step.

It’s a very strange nostalgia, a paradoxical state of mind, to regret something that we haven’t yet lost, in this case the weekend off. However, it is not necessary to give this a pathological or psychiatric importance. But This gloomy mood due mainly to the anticipation of the next day should not end up transforming into burnout.

Stay in your bubble!

This mixture between deep boredom and concerns can in any case result in both psychological symptoms (anxiety, weariness, tension) and physical symptoms (fatigue, stomach aches, palpitations). It is often the act of leaving one’s weekend bubble to mentally anticipate the work that awaits us that creates this state of sadness which is in principle temporary. But how can you avoid diving back into your professional environment too soon?

A survey carried out recently by researchers from the University of Exeter (Great Britain(2)with 650 volunteers highlighted the extent to which, in a context of hyperconnection, Sunday evening tends to quickly turn into a pre-Monday morning. An erosion of the boundaries between professional and personal which indeed affects our well-being… Moral: on Sunday evening, do not open your professional emails and stay in airplane mode!

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