What is your favorite day of the week? Well, a recent poll shows that 35% of Americans favor Saturday, while Friday is a close second with 29%. What if I asked what is your least favorite day of the week? A staggering 58% of Americans, which is half of you, would say Monday. But why? Well, the main reason is that most people do not like starting the week going back to school or work. Waking up early in the morning and going through a tiring day, just to see that you have another four days to go is not a good feeling. Another is that weekends are simply just too short. Though two days might not sound bad, many individuals spend up to a full day catching up on work from the previous week or using this time to reset. (YouGov)
So, knowing that two-day weekends are no longer long enough, what are some other reasons why we should regulate three-day weekends? For one, psychologists and doctors have proven that a three-day weekend improves health physically and mentally. You would get more sleep, leading to improvements in the work environment and an overall more enjoyable and refreshing day. A three-day weekend can also prevent heart disease and strokes. A big meta-analysis was recently conducted where 600,000 overworked American, European, and Australian men and women were linked to heart disease. Individuals who worked 55 hours per week or more had a 13% chance of developing diseases compared to peers who worked less, while individuals who worked less than 40 hours per week had a 33% decreased risk of having a stroke (CNN Health).
Outside of health, three-day weekends also give people more time to do what they want. Such as pursuing hobbies, hanging out with friends and family, and overall having more time to take a break from the hectic and stressful work week. As different people have different views Dorothy Wang (10) has her own thoughts on three-day weekends, “For my views on three-day weekends in issues of school life and work, I believe this would be beneficial for students like me because we would have more life-to-work balance, increased mental and physical productivity, more community and family bonding, and overall further opportunities to seek outside hobbies.” Furthermore, peers have taken online to talk about personal experiences, saying how they would skip school and lectures because of how tired they would feel; this would lead to a negative connotation towards school and bad habits and schedules(Quora).
Overall, looking at studies and personal experiences, people tend to be more fond of three-day weekends. Ultimately it can help improve health, relationships, and the end to the painfully short weekends.
