Blood pressure soars on Mondays
The stress of returning to work on a Monday morning can trigger a dangerous increase in blood pressure, according to a study.
The Tokyo Women's Medical University study shows blood pressure readings are higher than at any other time of the week.
It may explain why deaths from heart attacks and strokes tend to peak on a Monday morning.
There are 20% more heart attacks on Mondays than on any other day.
Heart disease is Britain's biggest killer. Around 270,000 people suffer a heart attack every year and nearly one in three die before they even reach hospital.
High blood pressure, or hypertension, affects one in five people in the UK and is a major risk factor for heart disease. The higher it climbs, the greater the force exerted by blood on the walls of the arteries when the heart beats.
In some patients, it's possible to get blood pressure readings down by switching to a healthier lifestyle. But hundreds of thousands more need a daily quota of pills to control it.
Measuring blood pressure can be difficult because it can vary from one day to the next.
'Late nights and lie-ins'
To see how it changed over the course of a week, researchers from Tokyo Women's Medical University in Japan, fitted 175 men and women with a device that would measure their blood pressure round-the-clock.
A week later the recruits returned the devices so that researchers could assess how blood pressure had changed.
The results, published in the American Journal of Hypertension, showed a surge in readings in those getting ready to go back to work on a Monday morning.
More... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4223103.stm
'I don't like Monday 24 January'
Misery is expected to peak on Monday, as 24 January has been pinpointed as the worst day of the year.
January has been long regarded as the darkest of months, but a formula from a part-time tutor at Cardiff University shows it gets even worse this Monday.
Foul weather, debt, fading Christmas memories, failed resolutions and a lack of motivation conspire to depress, Cliff Arnalls found.
GPs say exercise and reading up on depression are ways to beat the blues.
"Yes, we do see lots of people with depression and anxiety in the winter months.
"The message is it's not a terrible disorder, people do get better," Royal College of General Practictioners spokesman Dr Alan Cohen said.
"Exercise and bibliotherapy - reading a number of books to allow people to understand their own symptoms and how to control them," were initial treatments, he said.
The formula for the day of misery reads 1/8W+(D-d) 3/8xTQ MxNA.
Where W is weather, D is debt - minus the money (d) due on January's pay day - and T is the time since Christmas.
Q is the period since the failure to quit a bad habit, M stands for general motivational levels and NA is the need to take action and do something about it.
Dr Arnalls calculated the effects of cold, wet and dark January weather after the cosiness of Christmas coupled with extra spending in the sales.
He found 24 January was especially dangerous, coming a whole month after Christmas festivities.
Any energy from the holiday had worn off by the third week of January, he said.
By Monday, most people will have fallen off the wagon or abandoned the nicotine patches as they fail to keep New Year's resolutions.
That compounds a sense of failure and knocks confidence needed to get through January.
The fact that the most depressing day fell on a Monday was not planned but a coincidence, he said.
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4187183.stm
The stress of returning to work on a Monday morning can trigger a dangerous increase in blood pressure, according to a study.
The Tokyo Women's Medical University study shows blood pressure readings are higher than at any other time of the week.
It may explain why deaths from heart attacks and strokes tend to peak on a Monday morning.
There are 20% more heart attacks on Mondays than on any other day.
Heart disease is Britain's biggest killer. Around 270,000 people suffer a heart attack every year and nearly one in three die before they even reach hospital.
High blood pressure, or hypertension, affects one in five people in the UK and is a major risk factor for heart disease. The higher it climbs, the greater the force exerted by blood on the walls of the arteries when the heart beats.
In some patients, it's possible to get blood pressure readings down by switching to a healthier lifestyle. But hundreds of thousands more need a daily quota of pills to control it.
Measuring blood pressure can be difficult because it can vary from one day to the next.
'Late nights and lie-ins'
To see how it changed over the course of a week, researchers from Tokyo Women's Medical University in Japan, fitted 175 men and women with a device that would measure their blood pressure round-the-clock.
A week later the recruits returned the devices so that researchers could assess how blood pressure had changed.
The results, published in the American Journal of Hypertension, showed a surge in readings in those getting ready to go back to work on a Monday morning.
More... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4223103.stm
'I don't like Monday 24 January'
Misery is expected to peak on Monday, as 24 January has been pinpointed as the worst day of the year.
January has been long regarded as the darkest of months, but a formula from a part-time tutor at Cardiff University shows it gets even worse this Monday.
Foul weather, debt, fading Christmas memories, failed resolutions and a lack of motivation conspire to depress, Cliff Arnalls found.
GPs say exercise and reading up on depression are ways to beat the blues.
"Yes, we do see lots of people with depression and anxiety in the winter months.
"The message is it's not a terrible disorder, people do get better," Royal College of General Practictioners spokesman Dr Alan Cohen said.
"Exercise and bibliotherapy - reading a number of books to allow people to understand their own symptoms and how to control them," were initial treatments, he said.
The formula for the day of misery reads 1/8W+(D-d) 3/8xTQ MxNA.
Where W is weather, D is debt - minus the money (d) due on January's pay day - and T is the time since Christmas.
Q is the period since the failure to quit a bad habit, M stands for general motivational levels and NA is the need to take action and do something about it.
Dr Arnalls calculated the effects of cold, wet and dark January weather after the cosiness of Christmas coupled with extra spending in the sales.
He found 24 January was especially dangerous, coming a whole month after Christmas festivities.
Any energy from the holiday had worn off by the third week of January, he said.
By Monday, most people will have fallen off the wagon or abandoned the nicotine patches as they fail to keep New Year's resolutions.
That compounds a sense of failure and knocks confidence needed to get through January.
The fact that the most depressing day fell on a Monday was not planned but a coincidence, he said.
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4187183.stm