What is weekend neurosis and how to deal with it

Miscellaneous / by admin / June 23, 2023

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If at the end of the week you are often covered with apathy and sadness, funny TV shows and alcohol are not the best solution.

Finally the weekend! You can turn off the computer, forget about work matters and have a good rest. But for some reason you feel not joy and relief, but longing and uncertainty. Blame it, most likely, the neurosis of the day off.

What is weekend neurosis

This feeling of despondency, emptiness and depression, which arises at the end of the working week, when a person has time to realize how meaningless his life has become.

The term "Sunday neurosis" first began use the Hungarian psychotherapist Sandor Ferenczi back in 1919. He noticed that the neurotic and psychosomatic symptoms in patients were aggravated on Sundays, and connected this with the feeling of "internal liberation" that appears on a day off. In this case, a person has unconscious impulses, followed by fantasies about how he punishes himself.

A similar process occurs during vacations or holidays.

The Austrian psychiatrist Viktor Frankl wrote more about weekend neurosis. He

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determined this condition is like a depressive feeling that occurs when a person realizes that his life is not enough content. This usually happens when the work week ends and the feeling of inner emptiness comes to the fore, which Viktor Frankl called the existential vacuum.

Modern scientists from the University of Hamburg figured outthat more often than others, people with a higher level of education suffer from weekend neurosis. Their sense of satisfaction with life significantly weakens by the end of the week. At the same time, among men, this indicator is the lowest on Saturdays and Sundays, among women - only on Sundays.

What is dangerous weekend neurosis

The existential vacuum that provokes weekend neurosis can lead to a variety of consequences: neurotic anxiety, avoidance, overeating, alcohol abuse, processing and waste of money.

Elena Kotova

Psychologist.

Weekend neurosis can cause a person to experience pain, boredom, irritation, tension, and many other negatively colored emotions that one would not want to face. I don’t want to be in this state, I want to run away from it. Therefore, people choose different strategies that at first glance seem to be good.

Someone starts working on Sunday evening, someone, on the contrary, tries to have time to relax as much as possible: on weekends meet friends, watch three series, go shopping, drink alcohol, on vacation - sign up for 10 excursions contract. If you feel unwell at the end of your holiday, it may be due to the avoidance of hard feelings.

How to get rid of weekend neurosis

The intense “load” that a person takes on over the weekend helps to cope with the feeling of emptiness in the present, but does not work in the long run. Instead, to cope with the weekend neurosis, one must act in accordance with personal values and seek an inner sense of meaning.

Get to grips with your values

It is important not only to find them, but also to constantly check with them.

Elena Kotova

Life values are not goals. Values are an idea of what kind of person we want to live our lives. For example, having a child is a goal, being a caring and kind mother is a value.

In other words, values set the direction of our development. If we are not aware of or ignore them, we feel bad. Therefore, we often "try on" the values of other people. But no matter how attractive they are, they are not necessarily right for you. And that's okay.

To find what is important for you and not for someone else, Can ask yourself a few questions:

What matters most to me in life? What 6–8 values from list hundreds of possible me closest?
What kind of person have I been in the past, and what kind of person do I want to be in the future?
What decisions do I make most often and why?
Which People admire me? What exactly are their qualities that attract me?
What moments in life were the most pleasant and unpleasant for me? What experience do I remember the most?

Once you have identified your personal values, begin to make sure that they are reflected in your life every day.

Elena Kotova

For example, the value of a person is health. Then his actions may look like this: start doing 10-minute exercises in the morning, add vegetables to the diet, undergo a medical examination. It is advisable to plan such tasks - this will help you find time for them and not deviate from the route. So, every day will be filled with something important specifically for you.

Find the meaning of life

Viktor Frankl believed that weekend neurosis could be saved by finding the meaning of life. To do this, he advised doing the following:

Experience reality by genuinely interacting with the environment and other people.
Giving something back to the world through self-realization and creativity.
Change your attitude to the situation when faced with circumstances that cannot be changed.

In his book Man's Search for Meaning, the psychiatrist notes that a person becomes depressed when there is a gap between who he is, and who he should be or once dreamed of being, becomes so huge that it can no longer be overcome. Any goals begin to seem infinitely distant, and a person cannot imagine his future. Weekend neurosis makes it clear that something is going wrong and it's time to find out who you are and what is the meaning of your life.