◎管淑平
It is a myth that we are at our most miserable at the beginning of the week, according to academics. People’s moods on Mondays are actually no worse than on any other week day barring Friday, a survey found.
根據學者說法，我們在一週開始這天最難熬的說法是迷思。一份調查發現，除週五外，人們週一的心情其實不比其他週間日還糟。
The popular fixation on the idea of "Blue Monday" should be given the status of a "cultural myth", the team behind the new findings wrote in the Journal of Positive Psychology.
提出這項新結論的研究團隊在「正面心理學」期刊上寫道，應該給予「憂鬱週一」這種普遍的固有想法「文化迷思」地位。
"Despite our global beliefs about lousy Mondays, we conclude that this belief should be abandoned," said lead researcher Prof Arthur Stone, of Stony Brook University in New York state.
「儘管我們普遍存有週一日子難過的看法，但我們認定應該廢除這種看法」，研究負責人紐約州立大學石溪分校教授亞瑟．史東說。
Prof Stone and colleagues analysed data collected by Gallup from more than 340,000 American citizens in telephone interviews.
史東教授和同事分析蓋洛普以電話訪問34萬多名美國人所收集的資料。
The respondents were asked whether or not they had felt enjoyment, happiness, worry, sadness, stress and anger during much of the previous day.
受訪者被詢問前一天中大部分時間是否感到欣喜、高興、擔心、難過、壓力和憤怒。
Not surprisingly, the results showed that people reported far more positive feelings and fewer negative feelings on Saturdays and Sundays compared with week days.
不令人意外的，結果顯示，人們在週六和週日的心情，比週間那幾天正面的多、負面的少。
"The perception of Blue Mondays is likely prevalent due to the extreme contrast in mood from Sunday to Monday, even though there is no real difference in mood with Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday", said Stone.
「可能是從週日到週一心情上的極端對比，讓大家普遍有憂鬱星期一的觀念，儘管實際上週一的心情與週二、週三和週四其實沒有差別」，史東說。
新聞辭典：
bar/barring：介系詞，除非、除…之外。例句：Barring any unexpected development, we should be able to finish the project on time.（除非有意外狀況，我們應能如期完成這件案子。）
lousy：形容詞，糟糕的，卑鄙的，（俚語）充分的。例句：We had a lousy weekend.（我們過了一個很糟糕的週末。）
prevalent：形容詞，普遍的、盛行的。例句：The unknown disease is prevalent in some countries.（這種不明疾病在一些國家流行。）
文章出處：自由時報電子報中英對照新聞
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