Sunday scaries hit harder when you work from home

^{By: Marissa Calderon}

I used to think the "sunday scaries" were for people who hated their jobs. The ones who had to wake up early, take the train, sit under fluorescent lights, and pretend to care about “team syncs.”

But then I started working from home, and somehow the scaries got worse.

Because now, it’s not just Sunday night anxiety — it’s existential dread in pajamas.

I wake up optimistic. Every Sunday starts the same way: I make coffee, open the blinds, tell myself I’m going to “reset.” I’ll clean, maybe go for a walk, maybe journal like all those TikToks tell you to. But around 3 p.m., that familiar knot starts forming in my stomach. Not because I have to commute or sit in traffic — but because Monday is technically just here already.

When your home is your job and your job is your home, there’s no transition. No buffer. Just a quiet, creeping awareness that your laptop is fifteen feet away, glowing in the corner like a tiny anxiety monster.

At least when I worked in an office, there was a boundary — physical and emotional. I could walk out at five, talk shit about my boss with coworkers at happy hour, and then go home and forget about it all. Now, “logging off” is just closing a tab.

The worst part is how sneaky it feels. I’ll tell myself, just check Slack real quick. Five minutes later, I’m editing a doc that doesn’t need to exist yet. Sometimes I’m literally in pajamas at 10 p.m. on a Sunday writing emails scheduled to send Monday morning so it looks like I have my life together.

And for what? No one cares. Not even me.

I’ve tried all the “wellness” hacks: candles, screen-free hours, “no work after 7” boundaries.

None of it sticks. Because when your workspace is your kitchen table, every time you walk by your laptop, it’s like running into an ex you’re not over.

Sometimes I fantasize about a commute again — not the actual logistics, but the ritual of it. That liminal space where your brain shifts from one version of you to another. Now, my version of “commuting” is walking from my bed to the couch. There’s no “work me” or “home me.” There’s just “me staring at different screens in different pants.”

I started noticing this pattern around month six of remote work. My therapist calls it “anticipatory burnout.” It’s when your brain starts stressing about stress that hasn’t even happened yet. And that’s exactly what Sundays are now — an emotional dress rehearsal for the chaos of Monday.

I’ve tried to fight it, but lately I’m trying to just observe it.

When it starts creeping in, I do this thing where I narrate it out loud. Like, “Ah yes, here we go again. The part where I think I can control time.” It sounds ridiculous, but sometimes laughing at it is the only way to shrink it.

I’ve started making fake Sunday plans. Things that have no productivity value whatsoever. Last weekend I went to a 2 p.m. movie by myself. It felt ridiculous and amazing.

Maybe that’s the only real fix for the Sunday Scaries: small acts of rebellion. Pretending Monday doesn’t exist for just long enough to remember what calm feels like.

It never lasts, but that’s kind of the point. You take what you can get before the week starts over.