Let me set a scene for you: it’s Sunday night, you’re laying in bed cozy in your sheets and the moment when you’re about to fall asleep, you begin to spiral. All at once, the overwhelming and daunting thoughts of your questioned future and the aching yearning for romance hits you at the same time. Suddenly you’re wide awake.
One of the best pieces of advice that I have ever seen was that “everything is worse at night.” Late at night is when the haunting monsters of our past creep past our high walls. The embarrassing thing in middle school that you did or said comes back in full force and the craving for comfort and reassurance is insatiable.
Let’s say that you went through a bad breakup and months later you finally feel over it and healed. Your night imagination doesn’t agree. Suddenly every bit of healing and reconciliation that you did or thought you had accomplished becomes completely unraveled. You begin questioning and second-guessing yourself in your decision making and you’re back to looking back on horrid memories through rose-colored lenses. It’s easy to convince ourselves that we made a mistake or that things would be different if we tried again. Every thought and emotion we have at night, whether rational or impulsive, is heightened at night.
It’s easy to get distracted throughout the day by small things in our daily lives like the chill in the air, what we’re eating for lunch, the test you have coming up, etc. With all those distractions we aren’t left time or space to think about the things that really haunt us and keep us up at night.
The negative thoughts that we shove down during the day don’t go away forever. They come back louder than ever at night. But, good news! It isn’t just you. This phenomenon can be attributed to a combination of factors, including fatigue and decreased cognitive resources. As our energy declines, it’s more difficult to fend off pessimistic thoughts and worries. You may feel as though your life is over, but it’s not.
For some (including me), the sense of loneliness and social isolation is brought up. When I am trying to fall asleep my mind without fail tends to wander off into memories with my long-distance best friend, how I don’t have a huge group of friends, and how I feel as though I am one of the only people on campus not in a relationship. Now, the last part is more seasonal than anything, but it still occupies my thoughts nonetheless. But some more good news – there are ways to combat this! Maintaining a consistent sleep schedule, limiting screen time before bedtime, relaxation techniques (like meditation or breathing exercise) can also help promote your inner peace. These may not make your loneliness, dread, anxiety, or stress go away, but there are ways to manage it.
Sunday nights are especially brutal to get through with the dread and hopelessness piling up when we think about what we have going on during the week. The “Sunday Blues” or “Sunday Scaries” have especially hit me hard at this point in the semester. We are far enough into October that the newness and excitement of the new semester has worn off, but we also aren’t close enough to fall break to begin winding down our academic minds.
Dr. Ilke Inceoglu, a professor of Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management at the University of Exeter Business School, said “Our research has shown that the blurring of boundaries between home and work can make the experience of Sunday Night Blues worse. The erosion of boundaries is an issue we have all experienced since lockdown and is something that impacts our wellbeing.” Essentially since the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, we as a society haven’t been able to collectively shift back to a healthy work-life balance pre-pandemic from eroding work or school and life boundaries. André Spicer, a writer at the Guardian, said it perfectly “By the time Monday morning rolls around, I am already beginning to feel exhausted.”
Just remember: the world will keep spinning and this too shall pass.