It usually starts around 4pm on Sunday. The weekend isn’t over yet, but it already feels like it is. Your brain starts cycling through the week ahead – the inbox, the meetings, the things you didn’t finish Friday. The good parts of the weekend evaporate and what’s left is a low hum of dread you can’t quite shake.
It has a name. “Sunday scaries” is the casual version, but what a lot of people are describing is anticipatory anxiety – your mind racing ahead to imagine potential stressors before they actually happen. A LinkedIn survey found that around 70% of professionals experience it, including executives. It’s not a character flaw. It’s a very common stress response, and there are free, confidential options for dealing with it in Nova Scotia.
The problem with white-knuckling through it every week is that it compounds. A 2025 study found that Monday-specific anxiety led to 23% higher cortisol levels sustained over two months. You start Monday already depleted. By Thursday you’re running on fumes. By the following Sunday, the dread hits earlier.
How are you feeling right now?
Drag the emoji to where you’re at today.
Somewhere in the middle — and that’s okay.
Breaking that cycle usually involves saying it out loud to someone - which most people never do, because it feels small, or embarrassing, or like it's not serious enough. None of those are good reasons to keep carrying it alone.
In the meantime, a few things actually help. Spending 15 minutes on Sunday evening reviewing only Monday - not the whole week, just Monday - gives your brain something concrete instead of running worst-case scenarios on repeat. A short walk late in the afternoon helps process the cortisol that's already building. And if the dread is affecting your sleep or bleeding into your weekend, that's a signal worth paying attention to rather than pushing through.
For a lot of people, the turning point is simply having one conversation with someone outside of work and outside of their immediate circle. Access Wellness is a free, province-funded counselling service for all Nova Scotia residents 18 and older - available by phone, video, or also in person if you are near Halifax, Sydney, Kentville, or New Glasgow. No referral needed. You can book a session here.
Access Wellness is funded by Nova Scotia Health and provided by TELUS Health.
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