hey there everybody and welcome to this presentation on reducing sunday night anxiety
this is part of the new quick start guide series and i'm your host dr dawn elise snipes
what is sunday night anxiety well it's that dread that washes over you when monday morning is almost
here it can come from a variety of factors but a lot of times it's caused by anticipating the worst
from the upcoming week thinking about all those meetings that you really don't want to go to all
the stuff that you've got to do fears that you may not be able to meet expectations or maybe there's
some tasks that you're being told you have to do that you feel ill prepared for or that are very
uncomfortable for you challenging co-workers there are a variety of things that you can focus on
and just like anything else in life our brain is designed to focus on more attention on the threats
as opposed to the benefits of things so your brain goes to those things that you may be dreading
and and pays more attention to those and does not highlight the positives
so what can you do about it well acknowledge your feelings your feelings are real that
they are what they are so being mindful acknowledging them is the first step
the next thing that you can do is unhook from them you acknowledge your feeling i'm dreading
uh the upcoming week okay then you unhook by saying i'm having thoughts that are that i'm
dreading the upcoming week so you can unhook from those and you can say okay i have these thoughts
here what can i do with them positive affirmations is one of the things that you can try to do
remember your brain pays attention pretty much effortlessly to the negative things to the things
that you're dreading to the things that cause anxiety in you but it doesn't automatically
pay attention to the good things so you can also turn your attention to the good things
that you expect that week maybe you're going to get to see some co-workers that you really like
or you've got a project that's finally going to be finished whatever the good things you expect
make sure to pay attention to those not to minimize the stuff that you don't like but
to help balance it out to recognize that it's not all bad you can also think about things
good things that have happened last week and then throughout the week even throughout each day
stop and be mindful of okay what are the good things that happened today what is
making my day more pleasant and these can all be journaling prompts hence the little jp at the end
the next thing that you can think about or focus on or journal about is your ability to handle the
suck and i'm sorry there are just some days that suck and it's important to recognize that yes
it's unpleasant but you've gotten through them before whether it is an eight-hour meeting
been through those whether it is you know a whole day's worth of things that you don't want to do or
when i worked in community mental health we would regularly have audits
and those could be very stressful but i would focus on my ability to get through those and
how could i see them as challenges instead of burdens you can also explore the things
that you are dreading in terms of the dialectics looking at the good with the bad i really don't
want to go to work and have to go through sit through this eight hour meeting because you know
eight hours is a really freaking long time however i am grateful to have a job and hey
maybe i can bring some of my paperwork and work on that throughout the meeting
so you can embrace the dialectics you can figure out ways to make it more tolerable
you can modify situations to lessen the dread what can you do to make things more amusing maybe you
can in a meeting you can sit by a friend maybe you can bring paper and doodle you know maybe
not coloring crayons and everything but if you bring paper you can doodle or for me i make lists
there are a lot of different things that you might be able to do in situations i hate doing
progress notes it's just one of those things i don't like doing them so thinking about ways that
i can modify doing some of my paperwork i put on a video on the computer while i'm doing my paperwork
i'm not paying a whole lot of attention to it but it's in the background and it helps me feel
more relaxed and it makes it less unpleasant so i can i pair something i don't like with something
i do like you can have what's and you can journal about that what are different ways you can modify
the situations you hate in order to make them more palatable you can create a karma box or
what some people call a god box and you can write down your stresses and your anxieties
on index cards or pieces of paper and put them in that box and say you know what
i'm just going to put this over here right now and literally put that anxiety up on the shelf
one of my favorites because i'm a kid at heart is blowing bubbles
two benefits to blowing bubbles number one it forces you to deep breathe and breathe slowly
which can trigger your rest and digest so it can help trigger the relaxation response but
you can also envision your stresses in each one of those bubbles so think about something that you're
stressing about and then blow a bubble and watch it float away and then pop so you can see it just
disappear into the atmosphere thought stopping or redirection is something else you can do and
you can journal about this what are three or five ways that are if you find effective in order to
thought stop basically tell yourself no i'm not going to think about that
and redirect because when you stop thinking about it then you got to do something else
so i'm going to not think about this and i'm going to turn my attention to
you know what are three or five things that you can turn your attention to
another cause of sunday night anxiety is burnout work environments and i'm not going
to talk a lot about this right now because i have an entire other video on burnout work environments
and some things in the burnout work environment you cannot change sometimes you can have an
attitude adjustment about them sometimes you can embrace the suck sometimes you need to look for
a new job so there are different things that you can do depending on the characteristics of
your burnout work environment sometimes you are stuck in that environment for a period of time
and it's figuring out how you're going to make the best of a really bad situation i've been there
and you know seeing this light at the end of the tunnel i knew i had to stay in this
position for at least another four months because i wasn't going to leave the job in under a year
so how did i navigate that and that's something that only you can answer for yourself you can talk
with your supervisors you can talk with human resources you can try to resolve some of these
issues but burnout work environments do tend to create an attitude of dread on sunday night
and finally a lack of rewards just going through the daily grind can be dread provoking so to speak
it's just another week another day another dollar whatever you want to say if you're not focusing on
rewards or if they're not rewards throughout the week it can seem honorous to have to go through
and just trudge along through the same stuff different day so scheduling fun throughout the
week and even throughout the work day you know what can you do that is fun that is funny that is
lightens the mood that encourages um cooperation whatever it is that can make your environment a
little bit more pleasant and also help you look forward to work instead of dreading it on sundays
another tool you can use is developing hardiness commitment control and challenge your job is
only one aspect of your life what happens during the week there are lots of things
there's family there's um you know doctor's appointments there's shopping there's
all kinds of things but identifying the things that are important in your rich
and meaningful life that you're committed to is really important because you need to
figure out the best way to use your energy to nurture those things that you're committed to
control is the second aspect you look at those things in your life to about to which you're
committed and you identify what aspects of those are within your control what can you do to nurture
those things and make them be the way you want them to be so to speak and challenge is viewing
obstacles viewing problems as challenges or opportunities to improve the next moment instead
of seeing them as something that is onerous again see it as something that is inspiring that brings
out your curiosity and your creativity to think how can i solve this how can i make this better
finding meaning another one of those journaling prompts think about what are the benefits of
your job it may just be a paycheck you know sometimes that's all the only benefit there
is to a job but hopefully there are other things that are beneficial in your job
and what aspects of your job do you like you know again hopefully there are several things
but identifying any aspects that you like so you can focus on those instead of focusing only
on the things that you don't like evaluate the effects of your sunday night negativity
another journaling prompt what are the benefits to your sunday night
anxiety what in what way does that help prepare you for the week in what way does that help you
build up your energy for the week the answer to those is it doesn't it wears down your energy
it inhibits your sleep so there's really not a lot of benefit to sunday night anxiety there
is nothing that you can do on sunday to change the future because you can't predict the future
practicing mindfulness on sunday living in the moment focusing on those things
in your life other than work which happens on monday focusing on those things in your life to
which you're committed and using your energy on those things which takes us to the final
journaling prompt how could you use that energy that you usually spend with sunday night anxiety
and dreading the upcoming week and worrying about what's going to happen how could you
use that energy to nurture those things that are important to you that you're committed to
for some more in-depth videos you can look at the one on best practices for anxiety treatment
at all ceus.com slash anxiety dash tx which is short for treatment and you can also look at the
one on burnout i told you there was a whole other long video on it and that's it all ceus.com slash
exhaustion