How to Beat The Monday Blues

If a Monday morning reminds you of a cup of fresh coffee, your weekly planner, and inspirational thoughts of productivity, you are a unique person. Unfortunately, the Monday blues are so widespread that they have become a cultural phenomenon.

What are the Monday blues?

Having the Monday blues means that you wake up feeling sad, low-spirited, and run down on Monday morning. This phenomenon generally affects students, workers, and employees who have a five-day working week. Returning to work can annoy and depress people, leaving them unmotivated.

Considerable research has been carried out to test whether people’s behavior is affected by specific days of the week. The findings of these studies confirm that the Monday blues is not just a figure of speech. An experimental study at Emporia State University has shown that people tend to be more depressed on Mondays than Fridays. They are less likely to incur risks and more likely to avoid spending money.

The University of Melbourne has published an article about Mondayitis. This illness cannot be found in medical textbooks, but research has revealed that heart dysfunction is most likely to happen on Mondays. This generic term comprises chest pain, heart attack, and abnormal heart rhythms. In addition to Mondays, heart problems are more common during colder seasons, natural disasters (i.e., earthquakes or tornados), world soccer or football tournaments, and terrorist attacks. All these situations are stressful for the human body. Unfortunately, Mondays come more often than World Cups or earthquakes. They create chronic stress that heightens the risk of cardiac dysfunction. These problems become more frequent with aging, but health can be undermined in young people, too.

Your Monday morning thoughts set the tone for your whole week. See yourself getting stronger, and living a fulfilling, happier & healthier life.~ Jameson Ferguson

However, students are the most vulnerable group to Mondayitis. A psychological study revealed that the summary of university students’ daily moods indicated a large Monday blues effect. Meanwhile, married men who did not study at a university experienced a lighter effect and a larger mood variance. According to these findings, one could assume that the difference in the moods of married men on Mondays depends on how exciting and motivating their work is. Respectively, students’ stress levels are very high and leave little energy for enjoying their studies.

5 ways to overcome your Monday blues

Although it may require some time, effort, or changes to your habitual lifestyle, these problems can be resolved. The next five points provide a comprehensive solution to the Monday blues to ensure enjoyable mornings throughout the working week.

Go to bed early

The early bird can catch more than just a worm. However, to make early rising less painful, you need to go to bed before midnight. Getting eight hours of sleep is the standard, so note the time when you need to wake up and subtract eight hours to get the time when you need to fall asleep.

But evening showers and preparing to go to bed are also time-consuming tasks, so subtract at least half an hour more. Set an alarm clock for your bedtime and follow through with your plan. You’ll enjoy the feeling of getting enough sleep every night.

Developing a structured morning routine will also help you go to bed earlier. Knowing that you have to run a few miles at 6 A.M. to keep up with your exercise goals will motivate you to plan your evening accordingly.

Avoid overscheduling

For a smooth transition from a relaxing weekend to a busy Monday, plan fewer activities for the first day of the working week. If you attend additional courses or participate in sports, try to schedule them during the middle of the week. If some personal meetings cannot be arranged for weekends, plan them for Friday evening.

Some people benefit from writing down a plan for the upcoming week on Sunday evening. In such a way, you can figure out how to distribute your work throughout the week. Big tasks look easier if divided into smaller, more manageable parts, so your motivation and productivity will also benefit from such a practice.

Don’t forget aboutyour self-care habits

While trying to develop healthy and productive habits, do not forget about the ones you already have. Having a strict schedule during the week doesn’t do much good if we break it every weekend. In part, Mondays are so hard because we leave normal sleeping, eating, and exercise habits behind on Friday evening.

Therefore, try to balance your weekend and weekday lifestyles: sleeping hours, fun, rest, and work. It is often better to study a couple of hours on Saturday to make the week less packed. Similarly, never leave all the laundry and cleaning for the weekend. Your weekend will just turn into another working day without any rest. Find the least busy day during the week and do some of your chores then.

Do something you love

Make your mornings something to look forward to. This will motivate you to go to bed earlier, and also make Monday mornings less disappointing. Many people read before going to bed. However, reading several pages with a cup of coffee every morning sounds pretty nice, too. You can break the monotony and start your day with something more interesting than just cleaning your teeth (although you shouldn’t forget about this!).

If your schedule allows, dedicate Monday evenings to the things you enjoy doing. Distribute your assignments throughout the rest of the week to have some free time on this day. In this way, you will be more productive throughout the week and still be able to find an hour or two for your hobbies.

Rethink your study or job

All of us have relatively the same level of luck, success, and failures in our lives. However, some people are happier than others. For the most part, the reason is their attitude. They are more likely to think about the pleasurable side of things than minor problems that often can be ignored or resolved after little contemplation.

Take time to recognize the things you appreciate about your studies or job. There is always something positive to find: pleasant people you interact with, an amiable atmosphere in class or your office, exciting assignments, etc. Focus on what you get, not on what it takes. Still, if you know that your degree is not the one for you, or if your job is poorly-paid and too stressful to bear, you might need to make a decision to radically change your life.

Have a Great Monday

Believe on Monday the way you believe on Sunday.~ Rita Schiano

All in all, Monday is just another day. You are the one who makes it enjoyable or daunting. Spend 15 minutes every Monday morning thinking about your overarching goals and writing down where you are at accomplishing them. You will get a bird’ s-eye view of your life. It is a highly motivating practice, especially at the beginning of the week, when we feel that we have six more days in reserve.

Reposted with permission on Leaderonomics.com.