This “sends a signal to your brain to relax”, says Mr Stuart Sandeman, the founder of Breathpod, host of Radio One’s Decompression Sessions and author of the Sunday Times bestseller Breathe In, Breathe Out. Focusing on breathing in the present also helps decrease rumination on the future. Try his “if in doubt, breathe it out” technique. Inhale through your nose for a count of four, feeling your belly rise. Hold for four, keeping calm and still. Then exhale through your mouth for eight, relaxing your shoulders, face, jaw, forehead, behind your eyes… Repeat until relaxed completely.

Making a list on Sunday of everything you need to do on Monday “gets everything out of your head” and gives you a sense of control, says Mr Chance Marshall, an arts psychotherapist, founding partner of on-demand mental health service Self Space and co-author of How To Grow Through What You Go Through. The OHID’s advice includes writing down how you feel to help identify what’s causing anxiety (more specifically than “work”) and how to manage it. A study by Ohio State University even suggested that putting negative thoughts on paper and then binning it can help you mentally to “discard”. Just don’t throw away your list.

Offset heightened anticipatory anxiety with excitement, says Dr Jenna Vyas-Lee, a clinical psychologist and co-founder of the mental health clinic Kove, by scheduling some things for the week ahead that you can look forward to. Think dinner with a friend, even a favourite meal at home. In this correspondent’s household, Monday is designated pizza night.

It may not quite be life-changing magic, but tidying up can “relax you massively,” says Marshall. A spot of tidying, mind, not the full Ms Marie Kondo. It is Sunday, after all.

To wake up replenished, not depleted, on Monday morning, Vyas-Lee recommends feel-good, hangover-free Sunday evening activities – a bath or shower, stretching or other gentle body care, a (calming) book or box set. Make it a regular habit and your brain will look forward to this instead. And while it may not be new information, the “absolute headline” is not to start the week recovering from alcohol, drugs or inadequate sleep.

Some good old-fashioned human connection, even mediated by modern communications technology, can help you disconnect from work, says Marshall, and dial up feelings of comfort. Ring someone while you cook or do the dishes. Messaging doesn’t count.

Mentally rehearsing the required steps of a task in vividly imagined detail employs the same brain areas as performing them for real, says Vyas-Lee. It can also help you later perform those tasks and problem-solve with much less anxiety. Visualise yourself going chronologically through your day’s or week’s most daunting challenge. If you get stuck or anxious – in your mind’s eye – simply stop, brainstorm an alternative approach and restart. You could even, she says, spend 10 minutes “frameworking” a strategy on paper. Just remember that plans sometimes have to change when life actually happens.

The “eat that frog” philosophy of productivity is to start with your biggest, hardest, most important and least appetising task, after which everything else will seem like a piece of cake. You could, says Vyas-Lee, just commit to start, which is usually the worst bit. If that doesn’t work for you generally, or in this case, then line up a series of more achievable to-do list items to build momentum.

Try a Monday morning treat, Vyas-Lee suggests, such as a delicious breakfast, a gym session, a walk in the park before work or all of the above – and all of which are better with a friend. Getting some (healthy) feel-good chemicals flowing will “set you up perfectly” to tackle the day and week with a positive mindset.

Most of us will experience the Sunday scaries or blues from time to time and to some extent, says Sir Cary Cooper, professor of organisational psychology and health at the University of Manchester, especially after a good weekend or before a bad week. However, if you are filled with dread on a weekly basis, that “indicates that you maybe ought to consider different options” (and probably before handing in your notice).

You could explore the same kind of job with a different employer or, as some do in the January reflection period, a different career. To find one that you won’t also dread, says Sir Cary, weigh up the benefits and costs and talk to people who do it. All jobs, even the most spiritually or financially rewarding,

Another, less nuclear, option is to try and improve your current situation. If you want to work more flexibly, talk to your boss. If you don’t like your boss (“a real common one”, according to Sir Cary), transfer to another department. How willingly your employer will accede depends on how easily they can find somebody else. But on balance, organisations are “really into retaining talent” since the double whammy of Brexit and the Great Resignation. “It’s a good time for people to be thinking about this,” Sir Cary says.