Gen Z’s Sunday Scaries start at 4:13pm, and a clear cut-off from work messages helps

Gen Z workers who set a clear cut-off from work communications are 1.6 times more likely to say their Sunday anxiety eases, according to a survey of 2,000 Gen Z workers by nutrition platform Lifesum.

The survey, run in September 2026, puts the start of the “Sunday Scaries”, the anxiety of anticipating Monday, at 4:13pm on average, peaking at 5:17pm. For 74% it hits between 3pm and 9pm. The release does not say which countries respondents came from, so it reads best as a directional signal rather than a UK benchmark.

Most of the worry is about work people can’t act on yet. 44% replay conversations from the previous week, 41% worry about work situations they cannot control and 35% feel guilty they haven’t been productive enough over the weekend.

It follows them to bed. Those with high Sunday anxiety are twice as likely to report disrupted Sunday-night sleep, 52% find it hard to switch off from work and 41% lie awake thinking about Monday. A third (34%) say they turn to “revenge eating” after a stressful week, and those with higher anxiety are 1.8 times more likely to use food to cope than those with lower anxiety.

What helps is mostly social and physical. Time with friends or family eases Sunday anxiety for 62%, and walking or exercise for 54%. By contrast, 41% say social media scrolling makes it worse and 37% say the same of checking work messages.

The findings sit alongside Mental Health UK figures showing that 93% of 18 to 24-year-olds experienced high or extreme pressure or stress in the past year, and 39% took time off because of poor mental health caused by stress.

Emelie Fritz, Workplace Wellbeing Director at Lifesum for Work, said: “For employers, it’s about creating a workplace culture that supports healthy habits and respects boundaries outside working hours, rather than creating an expectation that people need to be ‘on’ before the working week has even begun.”

We have reported before that support on paper and support people trust are two different things, and the 37% who say work messages make Sunday worse is a figure worth setting beside whatever weekend messaging habits your managers have slipped into.