It's 11:45 PM on a Sunday night and your sitting on your bed either doom-scrolling, binging the same comfort show you've watched 30 times while zoning out, or hastily wrapping up some work you kept telling yourself "It's easy I'll get it done in 20 minutes," the whole weekend. I know I've been guilty of all of the above, sometimes even partaking in all 3 at once. All of these unfulfilling activities that drag onto the late hours of the night are a byproduct of one nagging, unsettling feeling we are all too aware about: the Monday Blues.

Starting of your week feeling completely unprepared & drained is a recipe for disaster when combined with the grueling schedules that multitudes of teenagers have that require them to be at their peak efficiency. While the Monday Blues are a part of life that seems unavoidable & inevitable, I have collected some tips and strategies that have worked for me to ease the weariness that precedes the following Monday.

1. Write Down What You Feel

The age-old lesson we've all heard from our guidance counselors and English teachers. Write down what you feel. It may seem completely useless to utilize but there is a reason why this is the #1 ranked tip on this list. Coming from someone who used to (and still does) overthink the same situation ten different ways into the night and would never feel satisfied with any of them, writing down what you feel is an incredible way to help.

When you write down what you feel, you are forced to make your anxious thoughts into a coherent thought. If you are dreading the coming Monday because you are anxious about a specific event, you can identify what that is and then work towards alleviating some stress. If you are just feeling general stress & anxiety, then writing down simply, "I feel stressed because..." can help in organizing your thoughts and will rationalize your erratic feelings. As Kidlin's Law states "If you can write down the problem clearly, you are halfway to solving it."

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2. Plan Out Your Mondays

The Monday Blues instill a strong feeling of unpreparedness which is a big component of what leads to anxious feelings in the first place. In order to combat the feeling of diving into the week headfirst with your eyes closed, take small steps to plan out your Monday to alleviate that stress at the beginning of the week. General planning for work and school is great for the rest of the week but for Monday in particular try to plan and set up as much of your routine as possible on Sunday night itself.

Meal prep your breakfast & lunch, set out your clothes the night before, what makeup & skincare you plan to use that morning, and pack everything you need into your bag. So when you wake up the next morning, instead of feeling like you were thrown from the weekend into the week, you have a chance to have a relatively slow morning because all the small things that usually add up have alreaady been pre-planned and are now out of your way.

3. Get Some Sleep!

Ok, I know exactly what this advice sounds like to most of you reading this. "Do you even KNOW how many AP's I'm taking?" "Do you KNOW how long my shift is?" "Do you even KNOW how long my games are during season?" And to that I say, no, I do not know specifically how much you have on your plate, but I do understand. This piece of advice almost sounds hypocritical coming from me as someone who is not even a night owl, but should be classified as nocturnal, having spent many days in a week pulling all-nighters. But the importance of sleep can never be diminished no matter how much I or anyone scoffs at it.

Sleeping on Sunday night for 6-8 hours can provide you with a clear mind and an ample amount of energy to get through an already tiring Monday. Sleeping earlier and waking up even just 30 minutes earlier on Monday morning, can also provide you with a slower less hassled start to your day which does wonders to calm frayed nerves.

Plus, staying up late on Sunday night can lead to burnout far sooner in the week when it is extremely convenient as opposed to it happening closer to Friday which doesn't hamper the full week's activities. Homework, extracurriculars, and work are real responsibilities that prevent tired teens from sleeping no matter how bad they want to, but if you had to choose one day out of the week to sleep early, choose Sunday night.

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The Monday Blues are an unavoid able part of life especially for teenagers who are always wired and on high-alert, running more on adrenaline and caffine rather than sleep. Hopefully these tips do a little bit to make the Monday Blues not so blue for you!