True — Saturdays may sometimes feel like a whirlwind — packed with errands, catching up with friends, and prepping for a fun-filled Saturday night. But that doesn’t mean Saturdays deserve no praise. Shout-out to Saturday for all the relaxed mornings, wholesome brunches, frenzied shopping trips, and wild game nights. And what better way to celebrate than with a Saturday meme to ramp up the excitement? The Romans later cribbed the system and chose their God, Saturn, to represent Saturday. Saturn was traditionally depicted as a Gandoph-looking old man with a long white beard. He watched over agriculture and brought strength, fertility, wealth, and abundance. According to the University of Warwick’s 2017 feature, Saturn also had a darker side (2). The post notes that the Roman philosopher Livy refers to human sacrifice during the festival of Saturnalia. Interestingly, many historians believe that the festival marked the origins of modern-day Christmas. So, if you work Saturdays, know things could be way worse. On the other hand, people who were engaged and interested in what they were doing felt that the time spent on a task was shorter than it was. In other words, boredom makes people more aware of themselves and their discomfort. Another interesting study, published 2021 in the Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews Journal, linked our body’s natural feel-good chemical dopamine to time perception (4). Dopamine significantly influences how we experience time, speeding up our perception. Well, that explains why Saturdays seem to fly by, while time spent at the office waiting for the moment to leave feels excruciatingly painful. Even more bizarre is the hospital stay superstition, which warns patients not to leave their sick beds on Saturdays or they will soon be back. And it seems that, until fairly recently, some still take the old sayings seriously. In fact, a paper published in 2000 in the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology found that out of 77 018 patients discharged from the maternity ward, 8097 were likely affected by the “Saturday flit superstition” changing their Saturday departure dates to other days to avoid the curse (5). Follow Bored Panda on Google News! Follow us on Flipboard.com/@boredpanda! Please use high-res photos without watermarks Ooops! Your image is too large, maximum file size is 8 MB.
