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www.desitalk.com – that’s all you need to know 10 LIFESTYLE June 20, 2025 CITY VIEWS Dealing With Sunday Scaries? Here’s How To Address That Anxiety S arah Redmond, a 27-year-old ul- trasound technician, said she feels some form of dread “pretty much every Sunday.” “It’s not that I hate the job it- self,” said Redmond, of Louisville. “It’s just being in, like, a cage - in an office all day.” When the weekend comes to a close, Redmond said it feels like “my freedom is ending.” One Sunday, she recorded a video on TikTok to “I Dreamed a Dream,” a song from the musical “Les Misérables” about a life that has fallen apart. The video of Redmond, wrapped in a blanket, lip- synching the song, has been played more than 7 million times. “I get the Sunday scaries on Friday eve- ning,” one person replied on TikTok. Anxiety is a normal human emotion many people feel in anticipation of what’s to come, such as the workweek, experts said. Sunday scaries is “a lovely allitera- tion for something that people have been feeling for generations,” said Kathleen M. Pike, a professor of psychology at Colum- bia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and the chief executive of One Mind, a nonprofit that funds research on mental health care and workplace well- ness. Not everyone has Sunday scaries, but anxious people identify with the feeling, said Judson Brewer, a professor at Brown University’s School of Public Health and the author of the book “Unwinding Anxi- ety.” The term becomes part of a person’s lexicon, and videos on social media amplify the message and reinforce their perception, he said. Redmond has mixed feelings about the millions of views for her TikTok video. She said that it’s nice to know so many people feel the same way and that it helps to laugh about it together, but that “it’s also kind of sad.” “I do feel kind of stuck. And, I feel like a lot of people feel that way. Especially in their mid- to late 20s,” Redmond said. “You feel like you’re getting older. You feel like you’re running out of time.” WHY DO PEOPLE FEEL THE SUNDAY SCARIES? A person can feel anxious on a Sun- day for two reasons, said Jack Nitschke, a psychologist and neuroscientist at the University ofWisconsin at Madison. You’re anticipating plans for the upcoming week, and the future is inherently uncertain. “It’s exactly the same thing that’s driv- ing morning anxiety,” he said. “It’s the anticipation of what lies ahead in the day.” Erik Davies, a 35-year-old resident phy- sician in Cleveland, said he had a sense of dread returning to work on Monday after a week on vacation in North Carolina. “I just knew when I open my email, or step back into the clinic, my email will be blowing up,” he said. “Anticipating that on Monday was really getting to me.” Morra Aarons-Mele, host of the podcast “The Anxious Achiever,” said our jobs and managers hold an overwhelming power over our mental health. Earlier in her career, she said, her Sunday anxiety got so bad her husband suggested she quit. “It really overtook my life. It’s visceral,” Aarons-Mele said. “Sunday scaries is a cute name, but the feeling isn’t cute.” Everybody feels anxiety; it’s “an ancient emotion,” Aarons-Mele said. And it’s com- mon to feel anxious about your job. Our jobs provide our well-being, livelihood and purpose in society, she said. Looming layoffs, or other signs of economic uncer- tainty, can create uncertainty and lead us to feel anxious about the future. “Of course you’re anxious. How could you not be?” she said. “The headlines are terrifying.” It is “totally appropriate” to feel anxious the Sunday before your first day on a job or the night before a big presentation, Aarons-Mele said. You’re going to feel anx- ious when you’re challenging yourself. But if you feel anxious every Sunday, or before every check-in with a manager, that’s a feeling to investigate further, perhaps with a therapist. Recognize how anxiety makes you feel, Aarons-Mele said. What are the signs that you’re anxious? And at what points in time do you feel anxious? “If there’s one person at your job who is triggering all that anxiety, that’s really important to know,” she said. HOW TO MANAGE YOUR ANXIETY ON SUNDAY Try to reframe how you think of your Sunday. The term Sunday scaries frames the day through “anxiety-colored glasses,” Brewer said. However, Sunday is neither good or bad - and people have control over how they perceive the day, he said. “The part that we don’t have control over is the fact that Sunday turns into Monday,” Brewer said. “But what we do have control over is how we relate to that, or how we view that.” Before dinner on Sunday, sit down and rehearse the week, Aarons-Mele said. Include your partner or kids, if you want. People are often anxious when they feel a loss of control, she said. Go day by day through your responsibilities at home and work. Planning minimizes uncertainty and helps you identify what’s within your control. When you start to feel overwhelmed during the week, write down “a very de- tailed to-do list,” Aarons-Mele said. “It’s an old cognitive behavioral therapy tool, but it really works,” she said. “It’s about being really, really granular and ac- counting for your time.” Keep track of all the good things that happen on Monday and Tuesday. For two months, document the positive feedback you get at work, or the enjoyable mo- ments spent catching up with co-workers, Nitschke said. Test whether there’s any merit to your Sunday anxiety. “There’s often a lot of good things that happen on Monday and Tuesday, and, yet, we’re spending all this time on Sunday having Sunday scaries,” Nitschke said. “As is often the case with anxiety and worry, we’re fabricating a future that’s miserable.” Elizabeth Pearson, a 28-year-old supply-chain manager who lives in Chi- cago, said that when she starts to spiral into a loop of anxiety, she falls back on a list of simple activities she does to feel grounded, such as calling her mom or walking her dog. “It’s really easy to get wrapped up in all that worry about the future,” Pearson said. “You’re spiraling so much that you’re not able to exist in your body, in this mo- ment.” -TheWashington Post By Teddy Amenabar Community Op-Ed: The Bike Stops Here: Removing Illegal Vehicles For A Safer New York June 9, 2025 P ublic safety has always been the North Star of this administration. Keeping our city safe is not just about crime stats — it is also about how people are feeling. And NewYorkers have strong feelings about illegal mopeds and scooters, especially when they are driving the wrong way down streets, on sidewalks, or in the dark without any lights, and when they are modi- fied to increase noise and disturb neighborhoods. The rise of the moped era has terrorized many of our pedestrians. Seniors and older adults are afraid of being run down right on their own block. Parents are afraid their children can be injured by someone popping a wheelie. And everyday residents dread that sound as they hear it approaching. But sometimes the use of these illegal vehicles is more than a danger or a nuisance, sometimes it’s criminals. Criminals often use illegal mopeds and ghost vehicles to ride around and snatch cell phones, jewelry, and wallets from NewYorkers, or worse, to flee after committing a shooting, robbery, or another violent crime. Our administration will not tolerate crime or riders who think the rules don’t apply to them; that’s why we have been taking action on this issue since day one. And as summer starts and more of these vehicles are out, we have ramped up enforcement all over the city, leading to us to confiscate and impound more than 100,000 of these vehicles since 2022. That’s over 100,000 ghost vehicles with forged, illegal, or no license plates, including over 62,300 illegal two-wheeled vehicles. These vehicles — which are often unregistered, uninsured, or stolen — are often used in crimes or implicated in accidents. They also deprive law-abiding taxpayers of millions of dollars in unpaid tolls and fees. We have been clear: We are not going to let people live in fear, and we are not going to look the other way. Last week, we sent another 200 of these illegal vehicles to their final destination: the scrap heap. We crushed these vehicles, instead of reselling them, so they can never be used in a crime or to terrorize innocent NewYorkers again. Whether we’re getting illegal guns or illegal ghost cars off our streets, when it comes to public safety, we are literally crushing it. The destruction of these illegal vehicles sends an important message to everyone who drives on the streets of our city: No one is above the law. If you drive an illegal vehicle in NewYork, you will face the consequences. And so will your ride. And the numbers show that our effort to rid our city of these vehicles is helping us deliver a safer city for resi- dents of the five boroughs. This year has seen a nearly 86 percent decrease in grand larceny patterns, as well as a 68 percent decrease in robbery patterns involving mopeds. More broadly, there has been a 57 percent decrease in all index crimes reported involving mopeds year-to-date. This is all in addition to our efforts that have driven down overall crime across our city; with the continuing drop in major crimes we’ve seen in April, May, and so far this month, we are on track to have our sixth straight quarter of declining crime. I want to thank NYPD Commissioner Tisch, Sanitation Commissioner Lojan, and the men and women at both NewYork’s Finest and NewYork’s Strongest for helping us get these illegal vehicles off our streets, once and for all. Thanks to their efforts, NewYork City remains the safest big city in America and the best place to raise a family. But it is also a place where you can live knowing your city is looking out for you — day and night, in schools and in subways, on the streets and on the sidewalks. By NewYork City Mayor Eric Adams