Escaping the Sunday Frights

I’m drinking my brew and thinking about the fact that tomorrow is Monday. Bad move. Leave that one there. I’d rather not contemplate Monday. It’s a beautiful day out there. Maybe I should go for another walk. We went earlier; blue skies, warm air; it felt great.

I’ve been battling the Sunday frights for as long as I can remember. They have a scientific basis. The core driver is anticipatory anxiety—your brain can't tell the difference between being stalked by a sabre-toothed tiger and having twelve unread emails from your boss. It dumps adrenaline into your system anyway, leaving you braced for impact while simply sitting on the sofa watching the telly..

Without resorting to psychological terms, I believe most people will understand what I mean, though their scientific importance is clear. That sinking feeling in your stomach on a Sunday evening. Yet, I know how this problem resolves.

It involves a thought experiment. Don’t worry, I will not get all woo-woo on you. I’m going to introduce you to the Time Machine. More specifics come later; for immediate understanding, picture this scenario. We will create the “Tuesday Morning Time Machine.” Here is how it works: hold tight, no woo-woo, I promise.

You start by picking an anchor. Say, Tuesday at 10:30am. By this time, you will have opened the emails, finished Monday’s meetings, and entered the ordinary rhythm of work. He’s where you need your imagination a little. Close your eyes and imagine what you will do at that moment—holding a mug of coffee, sitting at your desk, or typing a routine reply. Do an audit. Realise that at 10:30 AM on Tuesday, the nebulous dread you feel right now will have evaporated. You will handle tasks one by one, as you have hundreds of times before.

From that Tuesday perspective, look back at yourself sitting on the sofa on Sunday. Sunday’s intense anxiety did not predict catastrophe. That’s it. Done.

I know, right? Out there, maybe abstract. But let me tell you, it works, it does. I use it all the time. PTSD makes unusual thoughts common for me. But that also means I don’t need any other nonsense to deal with. But thought experiments? I love ‘em. Sit there with a brew. I will not spend any money. Stay put, with no tasks or travel. I use my mind, that’s it.

The notion of thought experiments may prove difficult for some people.It’s not just idle daydreaming. It’s a free spanner to dismantle a useless worry before it ruins the rest of your weekend. When empirical testing is impossible, expensive, or fraught with ethical concerns, a well-constructed thought experiment isolates variables that reality refuses to separate.

I plan to rest my head and contemplate Tuesday morning. If I have a little nap, works for me.