Feeling the Monday Blues? These 5 hacks can help lift your mood

Monday blues
  • Save

After a fun and restful weekend, there’s no dampener quite like the arrival of a Monday morning. If you’ve got the “Monday blues,” or feelings of stress and anxiety upon starting a new workweek, you’re definitely not alone in your experience. It’s quite normal to wish that the weekend could be longer and that you had more time to yourself before facing your responsibilities.

But Monday doesn’t always have to be doomsday, and there are several constructive things that you can do to appease Monday madness. Here are five useful hacks for countering Monday syndrome and ensuring that you start the week on a happier and more positive note.

Observe Healthy and Restorative Eating and Sleeping Habits

If you’ve noticed a pattern in which you constantly feel tired and bereft of energy on Mondays, it may be a good idea to examine your eating and sleeping habits. Many people have the tendency to swing between extremes during weekdays and weekends, like staying up later and eating more indulgently when it’s the latter.

You can help your body normalise, and therefore put yourself in a better physical and mental disposition to start the week, by observing healthy sleeping and eating patterns on both weekdays and weekends. It may make a huge difference to the quality of your day if you show up at your work desk feeling refreshed and invigorated.

Start the Week with Prayer or Meditation

It may also help to start your week on a reflective note, for example, through prayer if you’re a religious kind of person. A Muslim professional will find ample inspiration from religious resources like the Muslim Pro app and Muslim Pro app Facebook page. Non-religious people can set aside a little of their time on Monday to meditate or to simply reflect on the bigger things in life.

A Monday morning can come with stressors like juggling a large workload or dealing with difficult people. But it can also be an opportunity to be thankful for one’s livelihood, as well as hopeful about what the future will bring. Even a short moment of reflection can break up the monotonous routine of a Monday and puncture an otherwise hectic schedule with some quiet and relief.

Make a Monday Ritual That You Can Look Forward To

There may be a long list of things you dread doing on Mondays, like opening an inbox full of unread emails or kicking off a round of team meetings. But you can also make sure that you have something to look forward to. It would be good to think of a ritual that can invoke confidence and a sense of purpose in you.

Try kicking off a fun and pleasant routine that’s exclusively for Mondays, like wearing your favourite shirt, ordering your favourite takeout meal or shopping for new office supplies. That way, you’ll have positive associations with Mondays and be a little more excited about starting the week.

Space Out Stressful Tasks

One reason you may hate Mondays more than any other day of the week is that you anticipate extra stress or a heavier workload. But you may not need to front-load all of your heaviest or most time-consuming tasks on Mondays. In fact, it may boost your overall productivity if you space out your tasks more evenly throughout the week. 

Make Mondays more manageable by scheduling major tasks on other days. In addition, avoid burdening yourself unnecessarily by trying to do too many things all at once on a Monday.

Relax and Treat Yourself Throughout the Week

Lastly, remember that the weekends aren’t the only times that you’re entitled to rest and relaxation. It’s perfectly fine—and, in fact, the healthier thing to do—to allot time for R&R on Mondays. This can also set the precedent for the rest of the week. The keener you are to rest and unwind on Mondays, the easier it will be to do so until it’s the weekend once more.

Once you clock out on a Monday, try not to think about all the work you still have to do. Think instead about taking a long shower, catching up on your favourite TV show or podcast, or bonding with your family. Perhaps there’s no better day to remember the importance of work-life balance and to keep it sacred.

Final Words

It’s true that Monday signals the start of an onerous new week. But not all the things you associate with Mondays have to be negative. With a different perspective as well as some practical adjustments on your part, a Monday can feel like just any other day of the week—or better yet, a day that you actually look forward to. Here’s to starting the week with more energy and more hope for what is yet to come!

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.