Why does a wet Monday feel like the last straw?
We may not be in the worst of the weather just yet, but you’ll know the kind of Monday I mean.
It’s ten past eight, and it’s poured down all night. The football kit from Saturday’s 5-0 defeat is still damp on the radiator, and nobody’s mentioned the match since. Someone can’t find their other shoe, and the dog has come in from the garden wearing half of it on his paws. You’d planned to walk to school. Not today.
In the car, the windscreen steams up. You’re already late for your first call. Then the car in front stops dead to let someone out, and something in you snaps. You hear yourself say a word you’d never say in front of a client.
By nine you’re at your desk, wondering why a bit of rain and a muddy dog got to you like that.
Have you had a morning like that recently? Where it wasn’t the big things that tipped you over, but something small and completely ordinary?
Here’s what I’m noticing. It’s rarely the wet Monday itself. It’s that there was nothing left to absorb it.
Think about your phone when the battery drops to ten per cent. It goes into low power mode and starts shutting down everything it doesn’t need. It keeps going, just about, but there’s nothing spare.
Your body does something very similar. When your reserves run low, it switches off what it decides is non-essential. Patience goes first. Then your sense of humour. What’s left is just enough to keep going, with nothing to cushion the bumps.
This week is Stress Awareness Week, and it’s a good moment to be honest about what’s been drawing on yours.
For some, money is tighter than it has been. For others, it isn’t their own bank balance, but they’re absorbing it anyway: careful clients, a colleague worried about bills, a friend stretched thin. Then there are the dark mornings since the clocks went back. Weather that’s mild one day and freezing the next. Bonfire Night this week, with bangs that set off every dog in the street. And the Christmas adverts already on.
None of those things on its own is a big deal. Together, they’re a lot. And they land on top of everything that was already there: years of holding it all together, and whatever you’ve brought with you from further back. Stress is rarely one thing. It builds up in layers.
Often your body tells you first. Tiredness a weekend doesn’t touch. Headaches that come and go. A stomach that won’t settle. Lying awake, listing tomorrow. Symptoms you’ve tried everything for, that still won’t shift.
So what will it cost you if you carry on like this into the busiest weeks of the year?
You’ve probably tried things already. A long bath. An early night. A walk at lunchtime. Those things genuinely help, and I’d never tell you to stop. But they’re a bit like plugging your phone in for five minutes. You get a few per cent back, and it’s gone by mid-morning.
Coping in the moment gets you through a hard day. It doesn’t change how quickly you run down. That’s the difference between managing stress and building capacity.
By capacity, I mean what you have to draw on: better health, clearer thinking, emotional bandwidth, and the ability to pause in the moment and recover before the next thing arrives. When your capacity grows, a wet Monday is just a wet Monday. Annoying, muddy, and forgotten by nine.
If you run a business or lead a team, you’ll know this from the other side too. On a low-reserve morning, the decision you’d normally make in a minute sits on your desk all day. The email you send is sharper than you meant. Your team picks up on it, and eventually so do your customers. Everyone brings what they’re carrying through the door, and that includes you.
It’s the same for the farmer heading out before it’s light in November, to deal with a poorly ewe in the pouring rain, then loses it over a gate that won’t latch. It isn’t the gate. It never is.
None of this is your fault. You haven’t got weaker. Your system has simply been asked to give and give, with very little chance to refill. It can be tended rather than driven, and that’s where things begin to change.
Something to sit with this week: what’s been running on your reserves lately, and how much do you really have left?
This month, I’d love you to join me for Yin & Tonic: November 2026, Refilling Your Reserves.
It’s free, on Zoom, on Thursday 26 November, from 7pm to 7.30pm UK time. Thirty minutes to let your system settle and refill, with a simple practice that’s yours to keep.
No experience needed. No need to be on camera. No need to share anything about yourself.
Will you join me? Your reserves will thank you.
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