Your Body Really Does Have a Case of the Mondays

Your Body Really Does Have a Case of the Mondays

Briefly

"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."

"To answer these questions, Chandola focused on the stress hormone cortisol. The hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, a central stress pathway linking brain and body, manages much of people's response to stress. When we experience a stressorwhether it's something psychological, such as a looming deadline, or physical distress, such as a biting cold morningthe brain triggers the release of cortisol. The hormone helps us to manage short-term stress by mobilizing energy and sharpening focus. But chronically high levels of cortisol disrupt"