Flourish - Latest Edition - Flipbook - Page 33
4. Give work a de昀椀ned
昀椀nishing time
Choose a realistic cutoff for messages and
planning. Afterwards,
use a physical
transition marker,
such as taking a walk,
showering, changing
clothes or moving to
another room. The
action matters less
than its consistency.
It gives your body a
tangible cue that the
working and planning
part of the day has
ended.
6. Give Monday a reality check
Cognitive reappraisal involves shifting from
Monday’s emotional weight to a realistic
assessment of what is known. Ask yourself:
• What do I know is actually happening?
• What am I predicting without evidence?
• Which part may be dif昀椀cult but manageable?
• What support, experience or options do I have?
This is not false positivity. Evidence for cognitive
reappraisal comes from research into anticipating
speci昀椀c dif昀椀cult moments, rather than sustained
Sunday-night dread itself, so it is best treated as a
helpful technique rather than a complete solution.
5. Practise leaving one thing unresolved
Deliberately leave one manageable
question unanswered. This could
mean not checking whether someone
has replied, not perfecting Monday’s
schedule or accepting that you cannot
predict how a meeting will unfold.
Tolerance for uncertainty is built in
small doses. The aim is to experience an
unresolved unknown and discover that
you can carry it without immediately
acting to remove it. This is the evidencebased alternative to over-planning.
7. If anxiety prevents
sleep, stop solving
Monday in bed
Add anything you are
afraid of forgetting to your
open-loops list, then remind
yourself that it has been
captured. If you remain
alert, get out of bed brie昀氀y
and do something quiet in
low light. Avoid reopening
your inbox or returning to
detailed planning, as this
can reinforce the belief that
anxiety must be solved
through more work.
The goal is not to remove
every uncomfortable
feeling before bed. It is to
stop treating uncertainty as
an emergency, create some
structure and allow the rest
to remain unknown until
morning.
