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Dreading Mondays is not uncommon. And even if you love what you do, that passion doesn’t inoculate you against it. Sometimes it’s just plain hard to face Monday morning.

They’re called the “Sunday night blues.” And yes, it’s a real thing.

Google the phrase and you’ll find a whopping 21,500,000 results! In fact, 76 percent of U.S. respondents in a 2015 international Monster.com poll reported experiencing the end-of-the-weekend blues. That’s a lot of sad people who are not looking forward to going back to work on Monday.

If you’re one of them, here are some tips to help you ditch the back-to-work blahs.

Knock out a weekend list

Are you a list person? You know, the kind of person who writes down all of the things you want to accomplish during your day, week, month, year – life?  If not, maybe it’s worth a try. On Friday, make yourself a list of the things you want to get done over the weekend. Avoid making it too ambitious –and don’t procrastinate getting each task completed.

Start early in the weekend and methodically knock things off the list. Cross off each line when you’re done (which feels awesome in and of itself!) When Sunday rolls around you’ll feel great about all that you’ve accomplished.

Identify your triggers

Is there something going on at work that is stressing you out? There may be something that is triggering your Monday morning dread. Do some soul searching and see if you can identify those triggers. Write them all down, no matter how insignificant it may seem.

Once you have your “trigger” list, add in some details as to why each bothers you. Sometimes, just the act of putting things on paper – getting it out of your head – can help you to feel better, but I encourage you to take this exercise one step further.
Take a look at your list, and identify the issues you are able to change. What triggers do you have control over? I had a friend who used to dread managing a weekly Monday morning meeting. To remove that stress, she simply changed the meeting to Tuesday. That quick fix made her feel much better on Sunday nights.

Volunteer

Volunteering can really catapult you out of a funk. Helping others provides a rewarding sense of purpose, along with feelings of true accomplishment. Whenever you reflect on what you’ve done to selflessly help someone else, it is sure to make you feel energized, enlightened and proud. As a business owner, there so many benefits to volunteering.

Do Saturday on Sunday

Why plan all your fun stuff on Saturday? Do some enjoyable activities on Sunday instead. Splurge on a massage or a nice meal. Better yet, create a fun Sunday ritual that you can look forward to each week. Make it a movie night, card game night, potluck night… you get the picture. You’ll be too busy having fun on Sunday night to worry about work the next day!

Practice gratitude

As trite as it may sound, recognizing and being thankful for the myriad blessings in your life will do much to boost your spirits. You may not be looking forward to going back to work tomorrow but think about all of the benefits your work provides. Things like your basic necessities — food, clothing and shelter. Some people don’t have jobs and sadly, some don’t even have the bare necessities either. If you have all of these, you are a much richer than you may have realized. If you took a hot shower, drank fresh, clean water or ate something yummy today, try to be grateful!

Disconnect

Find time to completely unplug from all of your devices. Here’s why — if you are online, you are going to work. It’s as simple as that. How often has something as benign as “quickly” checking your work email suddenly thrown you into a full-fledged, stressful, un-planned weekend work session?

Here’s a newsflash — the world will not have ended had you handled that email on Monday instead of Sunday. So drop the smartphone, tablet, computer… all of it. Watch the game. Read a book. Take a nap. You’ll be much happier as a result.