Reading about these “personality changes,” I had an “aha” moment: My weekend routine doesn’t always work for me. A third of participants say they are “a completely different person on the weekend.” The majority of survey respondents report pretty large “personality changes” over the weekend, saying that their “weekend personality” is more spontaneous, imaginative, creative, fun, and easy to be around-and that their “workweek personality” is more neurotic and less engaged. It is worth noting, however, that in general parents don’t seem to reap all these benefits of the weekend: The survey found that parents are considerably more likely to feel exhausted during their weekend or anxious at the start of the weekend than are people without kids. For example, 32 percent of respondents feel stressed out on Mondays, but only 8 percent on Saturdays. My experience seems strange in that for the majority of people surveyed, happiness and feelings of satisfaction peak during the weekend, while stress drops dramatically.

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