Mondays Really Are More Stressful on the Brain and Body

For decades the term “Monday blues” has been shorthand for the collective groan that greets the start of each workweek. It’s also well documented in medical statistics. Mondays come with higher rates of anxiety, stress and even suicide compared with other days. Studies on the phenomenon across whole countries have found a 19 percent increase in the odds of sudden cardiac death from confirmed heart attacks and other cardiovascular events on Mondays, affecting men and women across age groups.

It now turns out that the effect of Mondays can extend well beyond fleeting fluctuations in mood. One of us (Chandola) recently discovered that people who report feeling anxious on Mondays show evidence of heightened activity in the body’s stress-response system over months. More surprisingly, this effect persisted among older adults who were no longer in the workforce, suggesting that, for some people, the stress of Mondays is a lifelong burden.

Read the whole story (subscription may be required): Scientific American