Why Are Thursdays So Bad?

I have always had a "crash day" during my work week, a day when I come home and can do little to nothing else. A day when I will literally cry over spilled milk. A night when I can't make simple decisions. A night when I get in a spat with my husband over ridiculously minor things. For a while, that day was Wednesday, and then it moved to Thursday, as Thursdays became the actual end of my work week. (I currently work a four-ten-ish schedule.) Thursday mornings, I found myself lacking motivation. Thursday nights I found myself walking through life like a zombie. Why? From observing myself and others, I have a few theories about why Thursdays (or whatever the crash day is) are so bad:

The end of the week is like a ticking time bomb. Whatever is on the list has to be done, and the time to do it is decreasing. This creates pressure, and pressure creates stress. Stress fills up the window of tolerance* making it hard to tolerate, well, anything.

I start to process the hard stuff. When the stress finally goes down towards the end of the week, the hard stuff fills up my window of tolerance, living me little room to well, tolerate anything else. Therefore, I melt down more easily.

I am often hungry at the beginning or end of the day. This complicates everything. I am either hanxious (hungry-anxious) or hangry (hungry-angry) (Cleveland Clinic, 2021; Folk, 2022). This makes things worse.

Thursdays (or whatever the end of the week is) are hard days. Maybe they don't have to be bad, though. Maybe if I change my self-care practices, and change my expectations, they'll be better.

I can attack the tasks that I can do earlier in the week, earlier. I can try to discharge early week stress sooner (eg through exercise, yoga, prayer, meditation, going to bed sooner, or what have you). I can ask my husband for extra tolerance and grace. (I am blessed in that my husband notices patterns and now gives me extra time and space on crash days.) I can make sure to feed myself before trying to do much of anything else. I can lower expectations and stop scheduling so many to-dos, social events, etc. on my crash days. I can put off non-urgent decisions that need to be made until later. I can give myself grace (though this last one is a hard one).

While I do often need to go to bed earlier as an act of self-care, I don't want to always end up in a puddle of tears in bed at the end of Thursday (or whatever my crash day is). I want to be functional to the extent that I can be. I want to be nice to my husband.

I am noticing my patterns. Thursdays have been bad, but they don't have to be. Here's to acting on what I know and having better, even if less expectant, ends of the work week.

*For an explanation of the window of tolerance, read "How to Help Your Clients Understand Their Window of Tolerance (National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine, n.d.)."

References:

Cleveland Clinic. (2021, June 7) . Is being 'hangry' really a thing -- or just an excuse? https://health.clevelandclinic.org/is-being-hangry-really-a-thing-or-just-an-excuse

Folk, J. (2022, February 17). Anxiety symptoms when hungry. Anxiety Centre. https://www.anxietycentre.com/faq/anxiety-symptoms-when-hungry/

National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine. (n.d). How to help your clients understand their window of tolerance. https://www.nicabm.com/trauma-how-to-help-your-clients-understand-their-window-of-tolerance/