◎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.
