What is Blue Monday, the “Most Depressing Day of the Year”?

[Article déjà publié le 15 janvier 2024]

This Monday, January 20, 2025, is “Blue Monday”, a Monday that would not be like any other. No, because this Monday you would face the “most depressing day of the year”. If this special day has often been branded as having been “defined by a particularly clever equation”, all this is in fact just wind. Worse still, if one of the goals of this day would be to shed light on depression, the primary objective would be to make you buy… trips.

The origin of Blue Monday

The third Monday in January is, according to psychologist Cliff Arnall's calculations, the most depressing day of the year. The data he said he took into account were the financial blowback from the holiday season, the frigid weather and the motivation to keep new year's resolutions suddenly seems to be waning. Originally, this health professional published a study in Cardiff in 2005 in which he declared that the third Monday of each January would correspond to the worst day of the year thanks to “a mathematical formula”.

Except that a few years later, in 2010, the media revealed that this study was based on nothing. Cliff Arnall therefore admitted to having been paid by the travel agency Sky Travel to write this false study. In fact, when people feel depressed, the first thing they think of is taking a vacation. And who do they call in this case? A travel agency wishing to make the “off-peak period” that is the month of January a time conducive to vacations! The worst part of this story is that a few years later, Cliff Arnall and his crazy mathematical formulas created “Yellow Day”, the happiest day of the year. This fell on the third Friday of June.

But he nevertheless calls for not taking this kind of “mathematics” seriously. “I welcome the impact of this day if it means people talk about depression and how they feel, but I also encourage people to refute the idea that there is such a thing as a most depressing day and to use this day as a springboard for the things that really matter in their lives.” he declared to Telegraph in 2010.

Since 2016, the creator of Blue Monday is working, as a #StopBlueMonday activity, to ensure that the result of its “equation” stops and the myth collapses.

A period marked by seasonal depression

In reality, even though Blue Monday doesn't exist, many of us feel a drop in morale during the winter. But do you really know what this is due to? And how to get past it? The first reason for this winter depression is that the days are shorter and the light is less intense. We can therefore say that the pace of life is slowing down. This can cause a real change in mood.

You should know that if your symptoms are severe and spread over two years, winter depression can be called “seasonal affective disorder” (SAD). These will appear in fall/winter and disappear in spring/summer. They correspond to a desire to eat more and more comfort food. But also a desire to sleep more without being able to wake up easily.

To reduce the effects of this seasonal depression, experts advise getting as much fresh air as possible but also eating healthy. Accompanying this routine with physical exercise also increases your dopamine. Light therapy lamps can also be a good way to boost your morale.

Source: TopSanté / The Telegraph