Hi everyone!
It’s Sasha! The newest addition to the Think-Team. This will be my first blog since I started my job as a research assistant intern at su-re co.
As a start, maybe I will talk about something… light. I’ve read many blogs from senior gift-makers here and they are all so insightful and inspiring. I’m still figuring out the next interesting topic that I will use next time. Just wait!
It’s Monday, and your alarm went off early in the morning, and you feel like you have to drag your life out of the bed all over again. At some part of our life, we may feel like starting the week is hard. Be that the weekend home works, new deadlines, or that one unfinished draft from the week before, there’s always things that waited to be done ASAP, so oftentimes we involuntarily associate Mondays with agitation and overthinks. The popular term for this “feeling” is “Monday Blues”. Sometimes after a weekend full of body and soul recovery, we blamed our slow starts of the week on Monday. This situation can happen to anyone, even to some people who love their jobs.
One experiment from Dr. Chauncey Crandall, MD at Tokyo Women’s Medical University that includes 175 men and women and had their blood pressure recorded a whole week showed surprising results. The highest blood pressure readings from the participants came from those who were getting ready for work on Monday morning while the participants who skipped all preparation on Monday morning or stayed asleep (because they did not have to go to work) did not produce the same surge.
It is also known that the blood platelets tend to be clumped in the morning hours. Another factor is the adrenal glands secrete more adrenaline after daybreak to get the body into fast functioning mode almost immediately. When you change your circadian routine, Dr. Crandall said, from relax mode into full working mode — and if you have to add the stress of commuting from your home to your works space — it will induce anxiety and increase the risk of having irregular heart rate.
Fret not, readers. Even though a study also pointed out that most heart attack cases happened on Monday, don’t make these reasons add your hatred towards Mondays even more. In fact, it’s most common in working people. Now you know that your body has its own ups and downs during the week, so you have to take care of it to achieve a higher quality of life. It’s not entirely impossible, but to some of you, it may need more practice.
There are a lot of articles online on how to deal with Monday blues, but here, I’d like to tell you about my own first-hand experiences that I curated from various sources. As a disclaimer, I’m still actively practicing it as well as I can. If you have your own tips, feel free to add them to the comment section below!
First of all, I plan everything that I have to do for the following week, sometimes it requires an extra another working hour on Friday (I know, most of us just want to jump into weekend mode right away after 5 pm), but it helps to stay keep track on things on the following Monday. By doing that, you eliminate the risk to feel anxious for not remembering anything from where you left off. Another alternative is to do it on Sunday night. If you plan everything beforehand, this may get you a little bit excited in the AM.
Next, find something helpful to get your gear up on Monday morning. It could be your favorite music, you can jam to it when you have your morning routines and commuting to work, have some cup of coffee, or maybe just a 10 minutes simple workout to start the day. During the day, you can do the easiest task first then gradually work on the complicated ones. Our brain needs their time to “wake up”. Don’t forget to take breaks!
Lastly, I always treat Sunday as the day of rest. I hit an off button to all the events that required my energy like the other days. Of course, it doesn’t always work like this every time, because some Sundays your energy is required somewhere else, but I always spend time on myself on most of my free Sundays. Some activities that I can spend with myself like drawing, meditating, and reading fictional books will make me feel recharged.
How's that for a first-timer? Hopefully, I will come up with something more exciting for the next ones. You’ll see me again soon enough, see ya!
-S-
Interesting ! Thanks for sharing:) This is definitely the guide that I need for today to motivate me through the week ;)