It is Sunday, at least according to one study conducted in Germany, by Swedes. Could it be because there is much less to buy? Because the cities empty out? Because walking in nature is overrated? Because you are supposed to go to church or are supposed to spend more time with family? Indeed the effect is stronger for married people. For former East Germans there is not a significant Sunday effect.
When I lived in Germany, Sunday was my least favorite day, as it was in Wellington, New Zealand, although that is not the case living in the United States.
For the pointer I thank Bruce Bartlett.
Perhaps because most people return to school/work on Monday and Sundays are used for homework, cleaning, ec.
Hangover effect?
Read Calvin & Hobbes. It provides the answers to your questions.
For me its all of the above: hungover and working next day.
NASA psychologists agree with some of the above comments: it’s because the following day is the start of a new work week.
(This, according to Bryan Burrough’s book _Dragonfly_ about the joint American/Russian missions abord the Mir space station)
Sunday is the most depressing day because the next day everyone goes back to work or school. East Germans didn’t feel this depression because under communism they pretended to work and the government pretended to pay them.
Also, nature is overrated.
Here in the south they don’t have alcohol sales on Sunday. I’m sure that doesn’t apply to Europe though.
Listen to the Lucinda Williams song: “I can’t seem to make it through Sundays.”
Sunday sucks because the weekend is over and you have a long week ahead. You have gotten used to the freedom in the couple of days. Monday is better than Sunday because once you actually get to the workplace or classroom and meet your colleagues and friends and start working, it doesn’t feel that bad after all. You don’t even remember the weekend anymore.
Maybe the interviewers and interviewees were grumpy about being interviewed on Sundays? When I was single, Sunday often did feel like the worst day of the week here in Australia like ten years ago. Everything was so quiet and lonely feeling compared to other days of the week. It’s busier now on Sunday than it used to be though.
I vote for Monday. I quite enjoy Sunday afternoons spent lazing about with a book, or in interesting conversation during a nice brunch after having been to church. And I find the consumerist ideology implied in the hypothesis that Sundays may be the unhappiest “because there is so much less to buy” truly depressing.
The monday work/school hypothesis seems bunk. Unemployed people are affected the same as employed. It would also seem to follow that friday and saturday would be the happiest days, but they follow sunday as being the most unhappy days. Who thinks about how bad next monday is going to be on friday or saturday?
Saturday is probably the key to understanding it, because it also suffers from some relative unhappiness while seeming to contrast sunday in many dimensions such as consumerism, social activities and relationship to monday/work.
Also they have a lot of data about demographics, but while I only did a quick search of the text, I didn’t see anything about the time of day that people where asked when they were happy. Maybe people took the survey at a different time of day on the weekends. Or if they were always taken at the same time, maybe the weekends have a different flow then weekdays, which could biases things one way or the other.
I hope people don’t conclude that we need to make everyone busier with less time to reflect.
The notion about going back to work the next day and going to “church” could be tested (partially). In some Middle Eastern countries they take off Friday and Saturday. So, Sunday would be the going back to work day and Friday would be the “church” day. There are a lot of problems with this approach, but it would be worth looking at different places with different arrangements.
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