Are You Afraid of the Weekend?

Weekends should be chocolate

after a week of dry crusts,

two days of pleasure, of not

having to do anything you

don't fancy.

So how are you spending yours?

Catching up on sleep, or downing champagne

till dawn?

Splashing in puddles with the children,

or splashing out on luxury shopping?

But hold on - before any of that, you also have

to go to Ikea; a gym work-out is a must; the fridge

looks like it's operating on Second World War

rations, and you can't relax on the sofa until you've

vacuumed the crumbs off it.

Not to mention that

you haven't seen your partner since last Sunday

because you have such frantic schedules. Or

visited your ailing mother for six weeks.

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Weekends used to be about rest and relaxation, but now they're filled up with chores and having to maintain a busy social life

In fact, there's so much to do, so much

pressure - social, parental, personal and domestic

- that growing numbers of us actively dread the

weekend.

Lawyer Helen Thomas, 45, points out

that for many working mothers like her, there's

no time during the week for anything but getting

to and from work and sorting out homework,

bedtimes and school clothes.

"So I have to deal

with the backlog of domestic admin at the

weekend.

"I don't have time to open my post

during the week, so at the weekend I have to

answer letters and pay bills.

"I need to cook meals

for the week and freeze them, put at least three

loads of washing on, and I always end up doing

a massive supermarket shop just when it's at its

busiest.

"As for all the work that needs doing in

the garden, I don't get near it.

"I wish I could be

the kind of mother who takes her children on

educational trips to National Trust houses at the

weekend, but I simply don't have the time."

"People have lost the ability to relax," says

Octavius Black, founder of the Mind Gym.

"We

have so much to do at the weekend that we set

ourselves up to feel guilty however it works out."

"I hear people in cafés on a Friday laying out

weekend plans like a military exercise," says life

coach Fiona Harrold.

"It sounds exhausting;

they're not giving themselves downtime. We want

to excel in everything - including socialising."

"I'm not good at weekends," admits Michelle,

35, revealing the screwed-up modern thinking

that free time is something else at which we can

fail.

"For some reason I think there are more hours

in them than in weekdays, and then I feel miserable

when I don't achieve everything I set out to."

What went wrong? When did people become,

as Fiona Harrold says, "so demanding of

themselves that weekends have ceased to be

enjoyable"?

Well, for a start we work longer hours

compared with even ten years ago - which means

all those domestic tasks that might once have

been done after work now get left until the

weekend.

Me-time is increasingly squeezed by

boss-time, with the number of people working

more than 48 hours a week on the rise again

(indeed, one employee in eight in the UK works

more than 60) so that most of us end up with just

16 hours of true leisure time each week.

And

according to the latest figures, women who

juggle a family and a career put in the equivalent

of 15 extra days a year to clear their workload.

We live further from our families now, so

keeping in touch with them, and making sure

grandparents get to see their grandchildren,

often involves hours of weekend motorway

driving.

Plus, our magazine-perfect houses need

constant upkeep, BlackBerrys and other

technology invade our leisure time, and the

knowledge that everything is open 24/7 gives us

a nagging sense that we ought to be doing

something.

Even the government is worried that

we're too permanently hyped: recent research

suggests that modern life is too demanding to let

us switch off, so sleep deprivation is becoming a

national problem. And even those of us who aren't

swamped by domestic chores have started to

view the weekend as a challenge all of its own.

In fact the working week, despite its long hours,

sometimes seems rather easy by comparison.

Work has a framework, scheduled meetings,

regular train times, filing systems - even a regular lunchtime pilates class - to ease us through the

days without time to worry about what we could

be doing instead.

But the weekend is different; at

the weekend we have choices…

"My weekend feels good for about the first

three hours on a Friday night," admits Anna, 40,

"then I start to panic that I can't possibly get the

house clean and the food cooked for Saturday

dinner, not if I'm getting everything fresh from the

local farmers' market - and that I'm still not going

to write my overdue part-time MA essay.

"Weekends are exhausting because you feel you

have to have fun.

"I have to have sex - preferably

twice to catch up with the lack of it during the

week.

"And I have to be a creative and interesting

mother, so I take the children to the National

Gallery even though they find it boring. It's

stressful - everything feels like a 'should'."

Why won't Anna just let herself catch up on

some sleep?

"It's a good question," she admits.

"My parents never felt the need to amuse me at

weekends, and there was certainly no pressure

for anyone to enjoy themselves then.

"We had a

routine: Saturday morning we did cleaning,

afternoon was food shopping and then, if I could

persuade my dad not to watch the wrestling, I

could watch TV. Sunday was just Sunday school."

Compare then to now: we, the modern

weekend hedonists who are staying up late, lying in late, shopping till we drop, desperately trying

to assemble a flat-pack bed in two hours (the

instructions were incomprehensible and when my

husband offered to help he dropped the Allen key

through a gap in the floorboards; thank God

B&Q was open till ten on Saturday night, or our

son would have been sleeping on the floor).

And then there are the weekends away - the

girlie spa trips, romantic getaways and college

reunions.

Exciting in the planning, but in reality

they always seem to involve hours in traffic jams

to reach that middle-of-nowhere, yet crucially

fashionable hotel.

All these activities upset our body clocks, so

that we end up suffering a kind of carbon-neutral

jet-lag.

Serious studies show that people typically

report Tuesday as the most productive working

day because Mondays are spent recovering

from the weekend - physically and emotionally.

Anna's weekend dread is nothing compared

to that of single banker Laura, 37, who is "worrying about the weekend by Wednesday afternoon".

The single person's weekend offers whole new

ways to dread your leisure time.

"I start panicking

if I haven't got enough social arrangements, or if

the ones that I have get cancelled.

"I end up totally

choc-a-bloc, rushing from coffee to lunch to

dinner. I'll double-book myself with people I know

won't mind a late cancellation, just to be safe.

"I know it's pathetic, but I still can't bear to be in on

a Saturday night; I get morbid about being a sad

spinster.

"And I'm not satisfied with (puts on

contemptuous voice) 'dinner with a girlfriend'.

"I have to be at a party or a club, something with

opportunities to meet men, to feel good about

myself.

"God, I'm always sooo glad when I wake

up and it's Monday morning."

Part of the problem is that Laura - like most

of us - is worried about what other people think

of her.

It's easy to feel this way now that we

have constant insight into other people's lives.

From Facebook, for example, I learn that my

schoolfriend in Australia had a perfect camping

weekend.

Once I wouldn't have given her a

thought; now I can worry about not comparing

favourably.

And ubiquitous celebrity information

keeps me fully informed of every wannabe's party

diary, so that even though I don't want to be a

Spice Girl, I know exactly what they're up to.

By contrast, it wasn't until years later that my parents learned of the wife-swapping parties that took place behind the mock Tudor

facades in our street during my childhood.

At the

time they lived in happy ignorance, assuming

everyone was playing Monopoly, just like us.

Even if you don't dread it in advance, you can

still be hit with retrospective 'weekend inferiority

complex' on Monday morning beside the water

cooler or at the school gate, when on the receiving

end of that innocent-sounding yet oh-so-loaded

question: "So, good weekend?"

There is a whole language - call it weekendese

- with which British people self-deprecate in

order to impress…

"Just doing up the boat." (Translation: We are

bohemian, but have plenty of money.)

"Paris - so sweet seeing the kids asking for

pain au chocolat in French." (We are glamorous

and perfect parents.)

"Oh, just another hen night/christening - I

wouldn't have gone, hate the things, but I'm

bridesmaid/godparent." (People like me more

than I like them.)

Fiona Harrold says that in order to enjoy a

truly stress-free weekend it's important to get in

touch with what you want.

"Subvert the social

pressure and have a fantastic night in. If you're

exhausted, look at what sort of weekend is going

to recharge you instead."

Former "Thinker of the Year" Professor Mihaly

Csikszentmihalyi, from Claremont Graduate

University in California, has identified that a lot of

modern leisure time is "consumed with either

anxiety or boredom".

The solution, he reveals, is

to find time for "flow" - that childlike state where

you're so absorbed in an activity that you don't

think about how you look, what you're achieving

and what you should be doing next.

Whatever gets

you in this state, whether it's painting, swimming

or mending walls with the local conservation

group (note: a bottle of merlot doesn't count),

you should indulge in it for a relaxed weekend.

This is great advice, except that one man's

state of flow is another woman's state of

frustration that she has lost yet another weekend

to golf.

In one weekend there are two kinds of

people - those who want to stay at home and

those who want to go out. Unfortunately, these

people are usually married to each other.

"John commutes to London during the week

and would be happy pottering round the house

all weekend," sighs home-based web designer

Miranda.

"I'm the opposite, I need to get out.

Every weekend, he fancies 'reading the papers

in that quite cool coffee shop' in our little market

town.

"But it's the only quite cool coffee shop

there and I've been in it every day during the

week.

"I'd rather go white-water rafting or visit art

galleries or even throw an impromptu party, otherwise I just feel my life is too small, that time's

slipping out of my hands."

If we can't compromise on weekends,

agrees Fiona Harrold, "someone's going to feel

short-changed in the relationship".

Michelle is often left looking after her three

young children so that her husband can devote

himself to building their perfect house.

"One

weekend, Antony spent every waking hour

laying a stone path in the back garden - it all

had to be done at once, something to do with

the way it set.

"I thought we'd had a really tough,

lonely weekend but for a good cause.

"Then, as

we went to bed on Sunday night, Antony said,

'That was great, why don't we have weekends

like that more often?'"

Hard to swallow, but realising that her

husband would rather handle cement than

spend time with the family jolted Michelle into

making sure the couple started to communicate

and compromise.

Now they alternate: one

weekend is social, the next is DIY.

Octavius Black says there is one answer to

the problems - both practical and psychological

- of your weekend.

"Don't have a huge list of

expectations but instead just pick a couple of

things.

"Think beforehand of what really needs to

happen to make it a 'good' weekend. Like

'catch up with my partner' and 'buy a birthday

present for my niece'.

"Do the same when people

ask you about your weekend. Select one small

thing: 'I saw a beautiful sparrow. I'd never been

so close up to one before, it was amazing.'

Appreciation is a mindset."

THE RELAXED WEEKEND STARTS HERE...

• Have a small, non-demanding plan to

give your weekend a structure. Identify

what would help you most - a lie-in, or an

early exercise session - and implement it.

• Weekend stress is often caused by

conflicting needs - wanting a social life

and a tidy house. So have a conversation

beforehand, says Octavius Black, between

'Me Today' and 'Me Tomorrow': Me Today

can't face tidying up the house on Friday

night, but will that ruin Me Tomorrow's

Saturday morning? Decide which matters

more to you, and accept the compromise.

• 'Cut yourself a deal,' says Fiona Harrold.

Tell yourself: if I clean the bathroom, I can

have an hour-long bath and chocolate.

Balance indulgence and achievements.

• Avoid sources of stress. Do supermarket

shopping late at night, to get it out of the

way while the shops are quieter. Don't

expect to get round Ikea in an hour.

• Avoid too many demands - limit 'duty'

socialising and the number of activities

you will ferry the children to.

• Force yourself to have a 'do-nothing'

weekend and see what happens.

• "Always have a treat planned for

Monday," says Fiona Harrold, "so even if

the weekend is disappointing, you won't

feel so bad come Sunday evening."

• Be confident about whatever you decide

to do. If you are spending Saturday night in,

reflect on all the bad parties you've been to

- the cramped kitchens, boring strangers,

dodgy minicab home. If you're going out,

do the opposite and think of the rubbish

TV, the oily takeaways, the boredom…

• At the end of the weekend, think of one

thing you can be pleased about: a beautiful

flower you've seen, a book you've read,

one big laugh you had - or even the fact

that it's all over for another week.