Study Says There's No Such Thing as "Monday Blues"

So it’s the start of another work week, and you can’t help but feel as if you’re dragging yourself to the office. You feel sluggish, unmotivated, and disappointed that the weekend is over. A lot of people don’t look forward to Monday mornings, but according to a study posted on NBCNews.com, there’s really no such thing as having a “case of the Mondays.”

Researchers from the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science at Stony Brook University conducted a study on the common concepts people attribute to the seven days of the week affect mood changes.  Published in the Journal of Positive Psychology, the research involved 340,000 participants who were asked to rank their moods for a particular day. The results showed that although people found themselves blue on Monday, it’s no different from what they feel on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. There seems to be a slight spike of happy feelings when they got to Friday, but people generally seemed to be in the highest spirits during Saturdays and Sundays.  

Interestingly enough, when they were asked to recall their feelings for Monday, people said that they felt much bluer than they actually were.  

“They don’t experience Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday as different in real time and when you ask them in the past there is a discrepancy.  It probably has to do with how people judge things in the past,” lead study author Arthur Stone explains.

So if you’re grimacing at the thought of getting up early on a Monday morning, remember that it isn’t as bad as you think it is. Besides, it’s one day less toward the weekend, so why not just jump into it head-on? Happy vibes are only a few days away.

(Photo by Jeannette E. Spaghetti via Flickr Creative Commons)