Having a bad day? Take comfort in knowing you’re not alone. A new study shows Americans have roughly 60 bad days each year.
Two-thousand people (all employed) were surveyed by fitness app Freeletics, which conducted the study to find out what triggers our bad days and the toll it takes on our health. The number-one day ruiner? Sleep.
Not getting enough sleep was the biggest bad day trigger, with 67 percent of people surveyed saying it’s a total downer. The survey also showed the average person blames work for 4 out of 5 bad days each month, or to put it another way, just about every Monday.
The New York Post reports that 34 percent have had their days ruined by having plans fall through, and a whopping 25 percent said a bad hair day led to a dud day.
Other day ruiners: worrying about money, not having hot water for a morning shower and feeling sick. To make matters worse, the research showed that 50 percent of people reach for junk food to cope with a bad day, while 34 percent reach for the bottle.
Freeletics says that a little workout therapy can do wonders by boosting your mood and helping you sleep better, among other things. According to The New York Post, the more frequently somebody works out correlated with how likely they were to report that exercise helps them deal with stress.
John-Francis Kennedy, Training Specialist at Freeletics, said:
These findings make a lot of sense, as working out after a tough day can be a very effective stress reliever, especially because it boosts those all-important endorphin levels.
Of the people who worked out just 2 to 3 times per week, nearly half (46 percent) deemed it a good stress reliever. And for those who worked out up to five times per week, the percentage skyrocketed to 64 percent.
Kennedy says any form of exercise can help relieve stress by increasing the level of some hormones, dopamine, serotonin and endorphins in the body. He added, “These, in turn, contribute to the feeling of happiness and a reduced level of the stress hormone cortisol.”
And Kennedy says you don’t need to kill yourself with sweat; a simple 20 minute workout will do the trick. And that does not include walking to the nearest fast-food joint and back.
