Overcome Sunday Scaries with Jess Harrington, The One Problem Podcast Episode

Hi there. My name is Avil Beckford, and I'm the host of the One Problem podcast. There are tons of problems in the world. We're going to tackle them one problem at a time. Why should we get overwhelmed? I recently met our guest today, and she was connected to me by another person. Her name is Jess Harrington, and she is involved in team awareness and accountability. That sounds intriguing, doesn't it? Over to you, Jess.

Jess Harrington

Thanks, Avil. Yes, thank you so much for the introduction. My one problem is, while I was thinking about the team one, I'm going to go right with the Sunday scaries. I think a lot of us get this when we go to bed at night on Sunday and we're getting super overwhelmed and thinking about the thoughts on Monday and what the problems we have to fix. Or maybe I didn't get to, I have to get this done, or maybe we're just overthinking the experiences from the weekend.

The One Problem with Jess Harrington, Team Awareness and Accountability

Maybe I had a conversation with somebody and I'm overthinking how that conversation went down. Maybe I'm beating myself up because I felt too relaxed all weekend, and I didn't get all the chores done. So that Sunday night, we have that inner conflict of frustrating ourselves from the weekend before, or we're getting so frustrated from the thinking about what could happen. And so we end up sitting up all night and we have these conversations over and over and we struggle to fall asleep. We do the TV, we scroll through Instagram, we try to pick up a book, grab a glass of water. We do all the things that we're supposed to do.

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Then we can't fall asleep. Monday comes and now we're just annoyed it's a Monday. So my goal with my solution is to have us not hate Mondays. But also not having the fear of Sunday scaries because we just experienced at one time we built up in our head that it will happen again every Sunday. So when it comes to Sundays, we talk a lot about morning routines.

Jess Harrington

What I feel we don't talk a lot about enough is night routines. And so with a night routine, always start in with just one thing. So no matter what routine you're trying to start, just always start with one thing. For a night routine, the one thing I always recommend is changing your clothes. It sounds super silly. But when I'm laying on the couch and maybe I'm in my sweatpants and sweatshirt, a fuzzy blanket, and I'm dreading going to bed because I don't want to think about not being able to fall asleep. So I'm trying to make myself tired on the couch. I'll just sit there. And then maybe eventually crawl away to sleep.

When we set this routine up, let me get changed. My brain is going, Okay, I'm getting ready for bed. Just as if I'm going to work out, I change my clothes. Just as if I'm doing a Zoom call, I change my clothes. And it's just getting my brain a little to that point of, okay, I'm going to go to bed. Just as when we wake up in the morning, we get our cup of coffee, we splash water on our face, and your brain is going, Yes, I'm waking up. Starting a night routine would definitely be my biggest suggestion with having the Sunday scaries. Over to you.

Avil Beckford

That is so simple, and it makes sense because they say that, for instance, if you want to develop the habit of working out, the first step is to organize your clothes and to put it on. Because when you have it on, there's something that signals a brain, oh, workout time. So I can totally resonate with that. Thank you so much, Jess.

Jess Harrington

You're very welcome.

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