The truth about 'Blue Monday'
Each year around this time, the internet starts going abuzz with warnings about the dreaded "Blue Monday," the so-called most depressing day of the year. Where did the Blue Monday concept originate, and is it a real phenomenon?
A quick internet search will reveal that today, the 21st of January, is supposedly Blue Monday, the worst day of the year, when doom and gloom govern the general mood.
Blue Monday does not fall on the same date each year, but it has to be a Monday (of course), and it has to be in January, and it is usually the third Monday of the first month of the year.
Truth be told, today, as I write this article, I am not in the best of shapes. Fighting off a stubborn and painful cold, stressed by pressing deadlines, and worried about the challenges that the week ahead may present, I am tempted to say that the Blue Monday label is fitting for a day like today.
But then again, I had the flu last week as well, and stress-inducing deadlines are a common occurrence in my line of work, so why not call every less-than-perfect Monday a "Blue" Monday? What makes today so uniquely gloomy? Or perhaps a better question would be: "Is the third Monday of January truly the gloomiest day of the year?"
In this Spotlight feature, we find out where the concept of Blue Monday originated, how this date is calculated, and whether or not there is any truth to the idea.
A forgotten marketing campaign
According to reports from various online sources, Blue Monday originated with psychologist Cliff Arnall in 2005, when he came up with the concept as part of a marketing campaign for the now-defunct company Sky Travel.
In order to determine which day in January Blue Monday would fall on each year, Arnall came up with a complex formula that takes into account a variety of factors, including: weather, level of debt, monthly salary, time elapsed since Christmas, how long a person has failed to keep their New Year's resolutions, motivational levels, and need to take action.
The premise is that the gloomiest day of the year would be marked by bad weather, guilt over not being able to keep up with the goals set for the year, money worries, and the contrast between the recent holiday cheer and the harsh return to mundane reality.
