Hey everyone and welcome back to the Easy English Podcast where
we talk about all things language, life and sometimes
Mondays. Today we are going to look at a
topic that most of us in our lives can relate to.
Why do people hate Mondays so much?
Think about it, Mondays have this terrible reputation.
You wake up, you drag yourself out of bed, and suddenly it
feels like the weight of the world is back on your shoulders.
But why? Is it really just because it's
the start of our work week or school or our responsibilities?
Or is there something deeper going on?
Let's talk about it. I got the idea for this topic
because it's a Monday and I was thinking another Monday.
A full week to go. And I know it's probably not
good to think like that at the start of each week.
So I started to think about why Monday gets such a bad
reputation. Why does everyone say thank God
it's Friday? And when it's Monday they go,
uh, Mondays? So we're going to talk about a
couple of aspects, and the first I like to call the emotional
hangover. And weekends are like these
magical little bubbles of freedom for many people.
On a weekend you can probably sleep in later, meet up with
friends, maybe just watch lots of your favorite TV shows and
basically just do what you want. I mean, within reason of course.
We all have responsibilities and many of us have families and
children, etcetera. But for a lot of us it's like a
mini grief cycle. So a cycle of sadness.
Every week you go from this fault of oh it's the weekend
amazing I get to relax to Sunday thinking Oh no I'm back at work
tomorrow and then you think maybe I can be sick and not go
to work to then acceptance. So OK it's fine I will be back
at work. It's cool.
And then on Monday morning we think we have 5 days to go again
until we get to that nice relaxing weekend time.
It's a bit of a roller coaster. The beginning of the weekend is
a very high point where we think, wow, two days off and
then the end is worrying about going back to work.
And this could also be related to the culture of hustle.
And that what I mean by that is the culture that in many
societies and many countries we have built around work and
productivity. So for many of us, Monday isn't
just a day. It's a symbol.
It's the start of another week of hard work, A reminder that
there's emails to send, deadlines to hit, and meetings
that probably could have been emails instead of meetings.
It's almost like we have all decided that Monday is the
official day of stress and I guess the memes and the jokes
don't really help. You can scroll through social
media and all you can see is Monday Blues.
I hate Monday, and it's almost like we're all creating this
image that Monday is terrible. And the next point, I guess, is
that there is a little bit of a sciency reason as to why Mondays
can suck for a lot of people while Monday why Mondays are bad
for many people. And it can be because over the
weekend, we're all guilty of messing up our sleep cycles and
schedules. So we might stay up very late on
a Friday and then sleep in on a Saturday.
And by the time we get to Monday, our bodies are like,
what are we doing here? And this is called social jet
lag. And it's quite real, to be
honest. Your internal body clock, which
makes us feel sleepy at certain times of the day and makes us
feel great and awake at times of the day, is changed whenever we
change our schedule. So suddenly that 7:00 AM alarm
feels terrible. And I'm pretty guilty of this
too. I usually am up quite early for
work, especially if I have to travel for work.
And then at the weekend I like to sleep in.
I like to sleep a little bit later.
I like to catch up on sleep, or so I thought.
But recently in the last month I have been trying to get up at
the exact same time almost every day.
So even at the weekends, and that is 730, it's a good time
for me and I'll get up at 7:30 even on a Saturday and a Sunday.
And what I've noticed is that on Monday I feel so much better.
I don't feel so negative or tired in the morning time.
And also this is coming from a person, me, who is not a morning
person. I really have to force myself to
build this routine, but the longer I've done it, the more
energy I'm feeling each day. I'm not constantly changing my
sleep schedule, so perhaps there is some truth to this and maybe
it is one of the reasons why a lot of people feel so bad on a
Monday and they're so negative about Monday.
So before we continue, just quickly, I want to mention that
if you want to support me and the podcast, there is a Patreon
link in the description below and you can check that out.
OK, so is it really that bad? You know, here's the thing,
Mondays themselves are not evil. They're not bad.
It's just another day. There's no difference really
from Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.
It's really our perspective, how we feel about that day, the
mental image that we create in our heads.
And do you know what? If you go into Monday expecting
it to be terrible or bad, guess what?
It probably will be. But if you're intentional and
you think right, I am going to start my week positively.
This is a new week, it's new me. I'm going to have a great week.
It can make a huge difference. For example, you know what if
you made something to look forward to every Monday?
Perhaps you could have a special breakfast or taking some time to
watch a What's your favorite TV show after work?
Something quite small but meaningful.
This could really help make Mondays feel better and the more
I've started to do this to get up early and to be productive on
Monday mornings. For myself, I personally like to
read a book that I'm enjoying, maybe do some language learning.
I feel like I've started the week with some good progress and
it creates a nice atmosphere and a good feeling for the rest of
the week. And I would recommend trying to
do something like that. It can be a real positive impact
on the start of your week. And I'm quite curious, what is
your relationship with Mondays? Are you a Monday hater or do you
secretly love the fresh start at the beginning of the week?
So let me know in the comments or maybe send me a message or
answer the poll if you're on Spotify.
And if you've got any tips for beating the Monday Blues, do
share them. I think we could all use a
little help turning this day, which we all seem to hit, into
something more special. So that's the main kind of topic
I wanted to talk about today. But I guess thinking about
Monday, we can look at some of the other days of the week, For
example, Wednesday. I think Wednesday is quite an
interesting day because people start to feel, particularly in
work, more positive. They get to Wednesday and they
think, oh, I'm halfway there, it's almost the weekend.
And then when we get to Friday, everyone is positive and getting
more relaxed, maybe not working as hard or working harder to try
and get work finished for the weekend.
This mentality or idea that we need to live for the weekends
and we hate work and hate Mondays.
I think it's quite negative because people end up then only
feeling happier at the weekend and during the week we feel
worse. So we definitely need to rethink
how we feel about Mondays and about specific days.
I think anyway, because it may be a sign of something more
serious. If we hit Mondays, we might
actually dislike our job, for example.
And of course, not everyone has the privilege or the pleasure of
doing a job that they love. I mean, my job is tough.
I don't do this as a full time job.
I don't teach anymore as a full time job.
I have a never job. And of course, I prefer doing
language teaching this project, the podcast, and I do all this
work extra on top of my job because I love it.
So yeah, of course, and of course, you don't need to love
your job, but perhaps having that awful feeling on a Monday
might be a sign that we need to make a change.
So thank you so much for listening to this episode.
I hope that something was interesting or useful from it
today. And do let me know, do you like
Mondays or do you hate them? Thank you for listening.
I have been Oliver from Easy English and I hope to see you
again soon. Have a wonderful rest of your
day, wherever you are. Goodbye.