The Sunday Scaries: How ADHD Brains Struggle with Transitions
The Sunday Scaries—like clockwork, every week, my daughter and I hit Sunday afternoon or evening and feel that familiar dread creeping in.
For some of us with ADHD, transitions are HARD! Starting a new task or transitioning from relax mode to work mode, can feel like you just can’t do it, no matter how hard you try.
Why Are Sundays So Hard?
For ADHD brains, a mix of anxiety, overwhelm, and emotional disorganization can make the Sunday Scaries particularly challenging.
- Anticipatory Anxiety: I see this a lot with my child. They can think about their entire day or week, and everything hits them in one minute where they are completely overwhelmed and having anxiety. (Now you know, between myself and my daughter, what fuels my passion for wanting to help others with ADHD.)
- Emotional Overload: ADHDers know too well here that we have so many emotions and sometimes don’t even know what emotions we’re feeling. I went through six weeks of ADHD coaching with this awesome coach that lives in the UK, and I’m happy to recommend her to anyone if you ask me. I like to take what I learned and apply it in my sessions using the emotions wheel and character strengths as needed and see where in the body you’re feeling them (like tightness in the chest for example).
- Time Blindness: Time doesn’t always feel linear for ADHDers.Weekends can feel like they flew by, making it hard to believe Monday is already here. Tasks often feel like they’ll “take forever,” leading to procrastination. Planning ahead might feel impossible, leaving us scrambling when the clock catches up. Time blindness adds to the feeling of “never enough time”—for rest, for play, for work.
- Executive Function is the part of the brain responsible for planning, prioritizing, and following through on tasks. For ADHD brains, this system often works on a delay or feels completely offline when:
- Starting Tasks: The mental load of figuring out how to begin can feel insurmountable.
- Completing Tasks: Losing track of steps or hitting a wall mid-task adds frustration.
- Regulating Emotions and Focus: The inability to shift from one mode (weekend) to another (work) without emotional resistance can make transitions feel overwhelming.
- Regulation Struggles: ADHD brains struggle to regulate emotions as mentioned above, as well as dopamine and energy levels. This can lead to:
- Last-Minute Motivation: Waiting until the very last minute to complete tasks because the adrenaline or cortisol rush of a looming deadline is the only thing that creates focus.
- Stress Build-Up: Operating under constant pressure to meet deadlines can make jobs more stressful, adding to Sunday anxiety.
- Emotional Dysregulation: Feeling overly anxious about work tasks we know we should start but can’t seem to tackle.
Connecting with Your Body
Since we have so many emotions and don’t always know exactly what we’re feeling, it helps to pause and focus on different areas of the body. This can be done anytime but of course helps during energy healing to let your practitioner know where/what you are feeling.
It could be tightness in the chest (anxiety), restless legs (suppressed/built-up energy), or I’ve had many clients with stomach issues. Our solar plexus chakra needs a little balancing when the stomach feels off. Of course it can be many causes like food, hormones, autoimmune diseases, but balancing the solar plexus chakra with Reiki can provide a lot of relief, regardless of the reason.
Reiki Video for Sunday Scaries
To tackle this weekly struggle, I do have a video on my YouTube channel: Reiki for Sunday Scaries
Feel free to email me and share what you’re struggling with the most in your ADHD journey, and I’ll see if I can create an energy healing video for support.