Mondays: Not Any Worse Than Other Weekdays

The idea of the dreaded Monday is quite a popular one—but it may not actually be true. A new study in the Journal of Positive Psychology found that people reported feeling basically the same on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. Psychologists analyzed Gallup data from 340,000 Americans who were asked to recall their moods the day prior, using words like “enjoyment,” “happiness,” “worry,” or “sadness.”

The researchers found that moods began to improve on Fridays, and that people tended to report feeling happier on Saturdays and Sundays, the Washington Post notes. Interestingly, retirees were also happier on weekends—even though those weekends were no longer followed by the start of another work week. (More mood stories.)