After a weekend packed with fun activities, and relaxation with friends and family, many in the Monday-Friday 9-5 set find themselves experiencing an odd feeling on Sunday night. It’s technically still the weekend, but instead of enjoying that carefree feeling, many adults feel gloomy and anticipate the stress of the week on Sunday night or evening. This phenomenon is called the Sunday Night Blues, and 78% of people surveyed said they had experienced it. It can strike even people who love their jobs, but may experience high pressure or stress from balancing work with family during the weekdays. But you don’t have to sacrifice those last precious hours to anxiety or sleepless nights. Instead, use the following strategies recommended by experts, and go enjoy that football game!

First you should try to keep busy with activities that you enjoy. This will help distract your mind from the problems of the work week, and focus you in on hobbies or friendships that fulfill you.  If feelings of dread begin to set in, try writing down how you feel, the things that are bothering you, and a potential solution. This will help you get the stress out of your system, and also to set the scope of the problem – hopefully to realize it’s not an insurmountable issue. Then, turn off your electronics. Part of the reason so many experience Sunday stress is because thanks to technology, work lives can easily creep into home lives via blackberries and constant access to email or work demands. By disconnecting on the weekends, you can recharge for the week ahead rather than prolonging stress. Make plans in the future that you’re excited about. If you have a fun Tuesday night activity to look forward to, making it through 8 hours to get there might not seem so bad. It can be as simple as meeting a friend for dinner or deciding to watch a show you love. Finally, you should get organized on Friday afternoon before you leave work so that you know that when you come in Monday things will be orderly, and easy to pick up where you left off with clear objectives for the week. Nothing is more stressful than walking in to chaos on a Monday morning.

It always seems easier to remember the bad things that happen in a day than the good things. You remember the downpour that ruined your hair on your commute to work more easily than the lovely lunch you had with a co-worker. Neuropsychologists confirm that this is normal, the brain’s “negativity bias” that helped our ancestors survive by programing them to constantly be on the lookout for bad things that might put them in danger. However, that trait brought into the less risky 21^st century can make it difficult for people to stay in, and embrace their positive experiences since we experience them more fleetingly. The brain can become hardwired to look at things in a certain light, and is more likely to look on the bright side (or the dark side) based on how long the neurons are firing, or how long you are experiencing either positive or negative feelings.

Since we have a natural tendency to relive the bad more than the good, neuropsychologist Rick Hanson suggests that in order to program your brain for happiness, you need to actively take a few steps. First, you need to actively look for good experiences, the little nice things that happen each day. Then when you find one, focus in on it. Try to approach the good things in life with enthusiasm, and try new things that will make you happy.  Finally, be mindful and try to really focus on living in the moment. All of these will create more lasting happy memories in the brain, and make you more likely to notice, and experience everyday happiness in the future.

Now I don’t feel so silly for all those times that I said something I knew would jinx me (Things are going so smoothly! Traffic is so light!), and then immediately knocked on wood to reverse the effect. A recent study by the University of Chicago Booth School of Business (that I read about on The Huffington Post) found that little superstitious tics like this may help alleviate fears. It might not actually stop the bad thing from happening (hello traffic!), but it can make you a little less terrified of the impending doom.

However, not all superstitious acts are equal. The most effective are ones that use movement down and away from your body, giving people a physical cue that they have negated the bad luck. The studies had their participants tempt their fate, and then take an action to remedy the situation (like knocking on wood), then evaluated their fear levels. People who had knocked on wood felt better. And it turns out that good luck charms can actually help you achieve better outcomes too. Who knew?

I saw this quote on my way out of The Dutch last night after having a cocktail with a friend. As a champagne lover, it struck a chord. While some may interpret it as words spoken by a lush, I see it more as a reminder to take time and revel in the moment when you’re happy – preferably with champagne, or any other celebration to mark the time. In my opinion, there is not a more festive beverage that is usually reserved for special occasions, toasting to newlyweds and the new year. The other wonderful thing is that as a beverage, it has inspired some of your favorite stars and literary figures to say some fabulous things. Here are a few of my favorite quotes about the bubbly.

“My only regret in life is that I did not drink more Champagne.” – John Maynard Keynes

“Too much of anything is bad, but too much Champagne is just right.” – Mark Twain

“Champagne is the only wine that leaves a woman beautiful after drinking it.” –Madame De Pompadour

 “Champagne is one of the elegant extras in life.” – Charles Dickens

 “Champagne makes you feel like it’s Sunday and better days are around the corner.” –Marlene Dietrich

Now go out and celebrate something!

I’m not sure when posting pictures of your food became such a thing. I think it has something to do with a combination of things – the popularity of food/recipe blogging, the rise of being a foodie as a hobby, and the fact that most people carry a camera phone linked to instagram in their pocket. I happen to be lucky enough to live in a city where the food is amazing. I can eat Thai, Russian, French or American in any given week, and frequent places that specialize in making one thing awesome (think Potatopia, Rice to Riches, Taquitoria). At many a dinner, I have been interrupted-about to take my first bite- by a friend who wanted to take a photo of our spread, and promptly upload our dinner to the web for the world to see.

Now this little habit we seem to have developed as a culture can help solve one of the world’s major problems, child hunger. Feedie, a new app will donate money to The Lunchbox Fund every time you take a photo of your food at one of the participating restaurants and upload it using their app. And the bonus? It’s totally free for you. The money comes from Feedie’s restaurants who cover the cost of the donation. The Lunchbox Fund will then translate your photo into real food delivered to school children in South Africa, and I have a feeling that if they get enough support they would expand worldwide. The best part is that it’s restaurants you (or at least I) would want to eat at anyway with participants including Babbo, Buddakan, Otto, The Spotted Pig, The Breslin, and tons more. Check out the Feedie site for the full list of restaurants participating, and go download the app already. Work towards helping people with something you’re doing already. It couldn’t be any easier!

Over the past five years, the United Nations conducted a world-wide survey on happiness around the globe with the goal of creating a report that would inform policy makers on the well-being of their nation for use in national policy decision-making. The results show that many countries have improved their overall happiness during the time period of the study, and that many of the happiest countries are found in Northern Europe including nations like Sweden and Denmark. Canada followed closely, with much happiness based on higher life expectancy, higher median incomes, and strong community ties. Somewhat surprisingly (to me), the United States ranked 17^th in happiness, falling just under Mexico for total levels. Check out some handy infographics of the data at The Huffington Post.