Beat your Monday blues: 4 tips to stay calm and improve productivity

After having a cosy weekend, or having a gala time with your friends and family, the thought of Monday might make you feel anxious. It is common and natural to feel intimated by Mondays, but there is always a solution to your problems and you can exercise your will to stay calm. If you are feeling the Monday blues, calm your nerves with certain coping mechanisms.

Health Shots reached out to senior clinical psychologist Dr Kamna Chhibber, to know effective ways to stay calm on a Monday morning.

Follow these tips to stay calm

Monday usually feels synonymous with an unfinished and piled-up stack of work. However, no matter how daunting your Monday feels, there is always a solution that can help you stay calm.

1. Plan well in advance

“Planning well in advance helps you have a plan in place for the week. Take out time for the weekend to develop a tentative schedule that gives you an understanding of what the coming week would look like,” suggests the expert.
Planning your week before its starts always helps you stay geared up for the whole week. When you about your “to-do” list in advance, it helps you better cope with unforeseen situations and feel more confident within yourself.

2. Give priority to activities that you enjoy

The expert says, “Place activities that you enjoy at the beginning or end of each day. It would help you look forward to something good and positive that would come the day.”

Make your day more fun by incorporating some fun activities in your day daily. These activities serve as stress-busters and would also help you follow your passion or hobbies in your free time. It could be anything from playing puzzles with your friends to reading a cup to hitting the gym, the list goes on and on. You could also treat yourself daily or weekly with anything, maybe a cup of coffee or buy yourself a flower for making it through the day.

Also read: Monday blues are real, even for fitness freaks like Shilpa Shetty Kundra

3. One task at a time

One major mistake most people commit is cluttering their day with too many tasks. Always learn to take one task at a time and avoid multitasking that only leaves you feeling overwhelmed and hampers your productivity at work. Just like we take one day at a time, learn to start with one task and finish it off before you hop on to the next task.

4. Perform calming activities in the morning

Usually, people give in to this bad habit of hitting the snooze button only to end up waking up late and rushing through everything in a haphazard way. You can always create a healthy morning routine by practising deep breathing techniques, meditation or yoga, avoiding using your phone for at least 1 hour after you wake up, and a lot more to give yourself that time to calm down before you jump into the thick of things.

“Start your day a little slower with calming activities in the morning. Rushing too much in the early morning can create a feeling of being hassled,” suggests the expert.

Try these tips to beat Monday anxiety, and see the difference!