Here’s the Science Behind the Sunday Scaries—And How to Banish Them So You Can Actually Enjoy Your Entire Weekend
It usually starts with one seemingly simple thought. Tomorrow is Monday.
One minute, you’re enjoying the last stretch of your weekend. The next, you’re mentally opening your inbox, rehearsing tomorrow’s meeting in your head and remembering those three things you swore you would deal with on Friday and somehow never got to. Your shoulders tense. Your stomach twists. The weekend was supposed to last until you were nestled in bed, but your brain is already sounding Monday morning’s alarm clock.
That familiar shift from relaxed to vaguely doomed is what people mean when they talk about the Sunday scaries. And if you’ve ever Googled “what are the Sunday scaries” while actively experiencing them, you’re far from alone.
In a 2025 survey by Adobe of 1,004 full-time U.S. employees, 82% said they had experienced the Sunday scaries. And it gets worse: 42% said they had lost sleep over them, and 35% reported physical symptoms such as headaches, tension and fatigue.
Despite the cute alliterative name, there is real science behind the feeling. And believe it or not, it’s not all bad news. In fact, Alexander J. Shackman, PhD, a University of Maryland psychology professor who studies fear and anxiety, says mild Sunday nerves may even be useful. “They’re a chance to take stock of the successes and failures of the recent past, size up the most important challenges in the week to come and plan accordingly,” he explains. The trouble begins when that preparation system stops helping and starts hijacking your day.
So how do you get your brain to cut that out? We’ve got the answer, of course! Read on to find out what’s going on when you get that telltale twinge of anxiety on Sundays—and how to combat it.
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What are the Sunday scaries, exactly?
The Sunday scaries are the dread, worry or uneasiness that can show up as your time off winds down and the next workweek gets closer. You might feel restless, irritable or distracted. Your thoughts may race through Monday’s schedule, and you may have trouble relaxing or falling asleep.
Why Sunday? Shackman says part of the answer may be contrast. Saturday is the weekend’s peak, baby! You’re riding the high of that Friday feeling, and you’re safely removed from work. On the other end of the spectrum, once you’ve hit Tuesday, you are already back in the rhythm of the week. Sunday sits at the uncomfortable border between weekend freedom and whatever responsibilities are waiting on the other side.
“It feels like you’re about to encounter something different, something potentially stressful or challenging,” he says. Your brain notices that shift and starts preparing.
What causes this anticipatory dread?
Anxiety is partly a preparation system. It pulls your attention toward possible problems so you can respond to them. That’s useful when there’s something concrete to prepare for, such as a deadline, presentation or difficult conversation.
Some weeks simply give that system more material. In Adobe’s 2025 survey, burnout was the most commonly reported trigger, cited by 55% of respondents. High workloads came next at 50%, followed by project deadlines and toxic work environments.
The response can also change, depending on how threatening a situation seems and whether you feel equipped to handle it. Shackman says the brain takes into account things like how likely a problem is and what options you have for coping with it. When the response becomes much bigger than the actual demands, it’s like an overly sensitive security system. Instead of helping you prepare, it keeps sounding the alarm.
What happens in your brain when you get the Sunday scaries?
There is no tiny “Monday” switch in your brain. Anticipating a possible threat recruits a network of interconnected regions that work together to prepare your mind and body.
In a 2025 study published in the Journal of Neuroscience and co-authored by Shackman, researchers used fMRI scans to study threat anticipation in 220 adults. Both certain and uncertain threats engaged a shared network that included the extended amygdala, anterior insula and midcingulate cortex. Here’s how it all breaks down.
The extended amygdala tracks possible threats
The extended amygdala, located at the base of the forebrain, includes structures involved in organizing responses to danger. In the study, this area remained more persistently active when people anticipated an uncertain threat.
That helps explain why something that has not happened yet can still feel urgent. Your brain does not have to wait for Monday morning to start monitoring what might go wrong.
The prefrontal cortex helps you plan
Shackman says parts of the prefrontal cortex are also involved in anticipating stress. This area helps with planning, decision-making and regulating behavior.
That can turn worry into useful action. You check your calendar, decide what needs your attention and move on. The problem is when planning turns into rumination and you keep circling the same fears without solving anything.
Your attention gets pulled toward the threat
The anterior insula and midcingulate cortex are also part of the threat-anticipation network identified in Shackman’s study. Together, these regions help your brain prioritize potentially important information.
“Emotionally charged stimuli—pain, threat, dangers and so on—hijack attention,” Shackman says. Helpful when actual danger is nearby. Less helpful when you are trying to enjoy your Sunday and your mind is already at work.
What else happens to your body when it goes into fight-or-flight mode?
Once your brain senses a challenge, the response can spread through your body. Stress activates systems that affect heart rate, blood pressure and stress hormones. In a 2022 study published in Psychophysiology, researchers randomly assigned 99 people to a stressful task or a control condition. The stress group showed higher cardiovascular responses, including changes in heart rate and blood pressure.
Your body can also react before the stressful event begins. A 2022 study published in Biological Psychology measured cortisol in 78 college students on a regular class day and on the day of an exam. About 37% showed a specifically anticipatory response, with cortisol peaking before the exam rather than afterward.
Sleep can take a hit too, according to other studies. That is one reason Sunday-night worrying can be so frustrating. You are trying to prepare for Monday while potentially making yourself more tired for it.
How can you break out of this pattern?
First, ask whether the anxiety is actually helping. If a few minutes of thinking about Monday leads to a plan and you feel better afterward, the system may be doing its job. If you routinely wake up on Sundays with your mind racing, cannot enjoy the day or lose sleep over work, Shackman says the response is no longer helping you prepare.
Sometimes the issue is not your coping strategy. “For some people, escaping the Sunday scaries might require looking for a new job or renegotiating the current one,” Shackman says. “After all, some jobs really are terrible.” If the anxiety is intense, persistent or interfering with your life, it is also worth talking with a health-care or mental-health professional.
What are some practical ways to feel calmer on Sundays?
Don’t worry—we have a plan! These tips will help you get your end-of-the-weekend anxiety under control.
Turn vague worrying into a concrete plan
Give yourself a short window to look at the week ahead, decide what actually needs your attention and write it down. Then stop. One recent study found that emotionally loaded work rumination was associated with greater fatigue, while problem-solving thoughts were not. A specific plan may help you move from repeatedly worrying about work to deciding what you can actually do about it.
Make room for actual relaxation
If Sunday becomes one long period of mentally preparing for work, you never really get the recovery part of the weekend. A 2022 study found that among Japanese teachers who entered the weekend with higher stress, greater weekend relaxation was associated with a larger reduction in psychological stress. Translation: Do something that actually feels restorative to you and treat it as part of the weekend, not time you should be using to get ahead.
Move your body
Shackman’s advice is refreshingly uncomplicated. “Go for a walk or, better yet, a run. Lift some weights. Sign up for a class at the gym or YMCA,” he suggests.
Exercise is not a universal cure, but it gives you something concrete to do with that restless energy and can help you shift your attention away from the worry loop. You don’t need a heroic workout either. The goal is to interrupt the pattern, not add another item to your list of things you failed to accomplish this weekend.
Protect your Sunday-night sleep
Give work thoughts a stopping point, especially if checking your inbox tends to generate five new things to worry about. The sleep research matters here because anticipating stress can affect sleep even before the stressful event occurs.
A little anticipation can be useful. But when your brain starts treating Monday like an emergency before Sunday is even over, the goal is not to eliminate every worried thought—it’s to give yourself enough space to prepare, then let the rest of the weekend belong to you.
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At Reader’s Digest, we’re committed to producing high-quality content by writers with expertise and experience in their field in consultation with relevant, qualified experts. We rely on reputable primary sources, including government and professional organizations and academic institutions as well as our writers’ personal experiences where appropriate. For this piece on the Sunday scaries, Miranda Manier tapped her longtime experience as a journalist and health editor to ensure that all information is accurate and offers the best possible advice to readers. We verify all facts and data, back them with credible sourcing and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.
Sources:
- Alexander J. Shackman, PhD, professor in the Department of Psychology and director of the Affective and Translational Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Maryland; interviewed, August 2026
- Adobe Acrobat: “The Sunday scaries: How to prevent work stress from ruining your weekend”
- Journal of Neuroscience: “A Shared Threat-Anticipation Circuit Is Dynamically Engaged at Different Moments by Certain and Uncertain Threat”
- Psychophysiology: “An online Trier social stress paradigm to evoke affective and cardiovascular responses”
- Biological Psychology: “An ecological approach for investigations of the anticipatory cortisol stress response”
- Cerebral Cortex: “Stress dynamically reduces sleep depth: temporal proximity to the stressor is crucial”
- Frontiers in Education: “When work bothers your mind: a diary study on the relationship of German teachers’ work-related rumination with fatigue”
- Behavioral Sciences: “Unwinding on the Weekend from Work-Related Stress: Moderating Effect of Weekday Psychological Stress on the Relationship between Increased Recovery Experience and Reduction of Psychological Stress on the Weekend”
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