Are you a victim of Monday morning blahs and blues?

We are all candidates of this syndrome.
Dr Abe V Rotor



That feeling of tiredness you experience on Mondays after a particular active weekend is directly related to your sleep/wake cycle. It is because any disruption of your regular sleeping habit, which consists of the ideal number of hours of sleep, the ideal bedtime and wake-up time, disturbs your biological clock.

By staying up late or sleeping in, or snoozing on a Sunday afternoon in a hammock can turn the circadian (weekly) cycle inside out. Take the case of my good friend Inciong who has the habit rushing up to finish his article for a weekly column deep into the night of Sunday. By Monday morning he feels out of sync and short of sleep, resulting into the blahs and blues. Often this feeling continues into Tuesday and Wednesday, as the body tries to reset to the weekday schedule. Thus, the ideal way to avoid the Monday morning tiredness is to stick to your regular sleep habits. But many of us, like Inciongl et al can’t resist staying up on weekends, working or socializing, or going out to a concert.

We are all candidates to this syndrome, but I have noticed that old folks are less affected by it. At one time I wondered how Tinong Viernes, a farmer whom I have known for many years, manages to wake up early and attend to his chores with little sleep the Sunday before. “Don’t you feel sleepy?” I asked.

“Babawi ako mamayang gabi. (I’ll make up for it tonight),” he replied. Indeed there is a scientific basis of this practice, simple as it may sound. Try this. To avoid the Monday morning tiredness, stay up as late as the need arises or as you wish, but make sure you get up at your regular wake-up time. Don’t sleep in, and don’t take naps during the day. When night comes you will not find it difficult to fall asleep at your regular bedtime. In this way you reset your body clock back to its regular time.

This formula applies as well on any day of week, so that if you want to stay late, say on Wednesday, be sure to wake up on your regular wake-up time on Thursday. Then just what Tinong said, make up for it come night time at your regular sleep-time. You will feel refreshed on Friday and in the days ahead, until your sleep pattern is again disrupted. This is one way to avoid or overcome insomnia.~

Living with Folk Wisdom, AVR, UST Manila