For many of us, dragging ourselves out of bed is a difficult endeavor any day of the week, but none more so than Monday morning. Ahh, Monday: it all starts with that sinking feeling in your chest on Sunday afternoon when you realize the weekend is soon coming to a close, and the desperation you feel as you inevitably stay up too late and are forced to set your alarm for too early. Close your eyes, and in a flash, it’s MONDAY, and the alarm is blaring, and after hitting snooze a few times, there’s no way you’re not going to be late to work.
As the comedian Steven Wright once put it, “Mondays are a dreadful way to spend 1/7 of your life.”
But is there a real statistical reason why Mondays are so completely horrible? Actually, yes. A lot of them. Here are 10.
1. We go into Monday knowing that it’s going to be awful.
Researchers in Australia found that people remembered feeling the worst on Monday, even though when they actually rated their feelings day to day there was no difference between any of the days of the week. Basically, part of why Monday sucks so much is that we expect it to.
2. Most of us don’t even crack our first smile until 11:16am.
If you’ve already smiled today, you’re better off than most.
3. We spend 12 minutes just complaining that it’s Monday again.
Yes, looks like you really do have a case of the Mondays.
CC image by Rob Sinclair on Flickr
4. And those between the ages of 45 and 54 complain the loudest.
Mondays hit workers between 45 and 54 years old the hardest.
CC image by thevlue on Flickr
5. Half of us are late for work.
Maybe you stayed up too late, or pressed snooze too many times, or couldn’t find your car keys – or a uniquely horrible combination of all three.
CC image by sunshinecity on Flickr
6. But why bother? We’ll only get 3.5 hours of work done anyway.
We’re spending the rest of the time complaining about Monday, or shopping online (because Monday is also apparently the most common day of the week to shop online).
CC image by msvg on Flickr
7. Your risk for a heart attack increases on Monday.
Maybe you should have the salad for lunch instead of the Big Mac.
CC image by trekkingrinjani on Flickr
8. The number of suicides also spikes on Monday.
Maybe it’s just too hard to return to the grind.
9. Monday marks the official longest point until the weekend.
There’s no getting out of it, the weekend is a long way off.
CC image by seyyed_mostafa_zamani on Flickr
10. On the (literal) bright side, Monday is the least rainy day of the week!
But the reasoning behind it may be a little stormier: some scientists believe that there’s less rain on Mondays because our pollution levels slightly subside over the weekend. Yikes.
