It’s Blue Monday but what does it actually mean. About Manchester takes a look.
No, it’s not the biggest selling twelve inch record by Manchester’s New Order, but the invention of Dr Cliff Arnall, formerly of Cardiff University, who back in 2005, came up with a light-hearted formula for predicting the gloomiest day of the year based on factors including weather, debts, time since Christmas and motivation.
The third Monday in January, Christmas memories fading, bills coming in, the mornings are still dark and still two weeks from pay day, this day is seen as the low point of the month.
Experts recommend various solutions for pushing the blues aside, taking exercise, from a simple shoulder-shake at your desk to a full work-out at the gym, you can change the way you feel.
Contact a friend or relative, get in touch with someone you have not heard from in a while; thinking of someone else takes your mind off you Start an activity you’ve wanted to do for ages andenjoying time with friends and family, while on the day itself, maybe booking a trip, a weekend away or even a trip to the cinema.
Maybe just carry out a random act of kindness, doing good for others is the best form of self-satisfaction or simply share your thoughts, a problem shared is a problem halved.
On the more serious side, One in five people in the UK experience depression and are not able to easily shrug off their problems. But maybe ‘Blue Monday’ is a chance for many people to overcome the more immediate side of life’s downs, and use the opportunity to reflect on what makes us depressed, and what can be done to help and overcome the issues surrounding depression.
Is it the most depressing day? The cynics will point to the fact that it has been hijacked by marketers and public relations firms. No studies or evidence have proved any one calendar date is more gloomy than any others, and the formula linked with the calculation of such a date has no real scientific basis.
But let Dr Cliff Arnall have the final word:
“I was originally asked to come up with what I thought was the best day to book a summer holiday but when I started thinking about the motives for booking a holiday, reflecting on what thousands had told me during stress management or happiness workshops, there were these factors that pointed to the third Monday in January as being particularly depressing … but it is not particularly helpful to put that out there and say ‘there you are’ … it is almost a self-fulfilling prophecy that it is the most depressing day.”
Enough said
