"We might all be living for the weekend, but our brains might be screaming for help by the time Saturday morning arrives. You see, the habits we fall into between Friday night and Sunday evening can quietly sabotage the very recovery we crave. They make Mondays harder-like a week's old lasagna even Garfield wouldn't touch-they drag our productivity lower and make our moods more volatile. And the irony is that we feel like we deserve it."
"Psychologists have a term for this, and it's called moral licensing, or the belief that after doing something "good," we've earned the right to do something "bad." Moral licensing isn't determined to ruin only our weekends, mind you. We stick to a diet all week, then feel entitled to dessert that blows through our calorie-ceiling in one bite just like we hit every deadline from Monday to Friday only to feel justified in numbing our brains out for two days."
Weekend habits that treat leisure as an earned withdrawal from weekday effort can sabotage recovery and long-term goals. Framing indulgences as justified rewards creates short-term dopamine spikes that reduce satisfaction and erode sustained motivation. The "work hard, play hard" pattern functions as mental accounting: weekday deposits of discipline permit weekend withdrawals that carry hidden costs. These hidden costs increase Monday difficulty, lower productivity, and destabilize mood. Treating rewards as inevitable can turn restorative time into regression rather than renewal, making consistent progress on diets, work performance, and well-being less likely.
Read at Psychology Today
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