I have just discovered that today is officially Blue Monday, the most depressing day of the year. The third Monday of the year is the most depressing day of the year because it’s cold, dark, we’re broke, our new year resolutions have all gone south, our motivational levels are low and I can’t be bothered to think of the other reasons. I’d better be depressed then.
The fact that I am no more depressed than usual would tend to suggest that Blue Monday is pseudoscience, rather like mediumship and homeopathy. You can come up with all manner of hocus pocus theories to try and prove a point, but the facts are against you.
What Blue Monday has actually become is a marketing man’s dream. The myth of Blue Monday was dreamt up years ago when the advertising world soon realised there were a few quid to be made on the back of it. “Feel shit on the most depressing day of the year? Then buy some tat. It will make you feel better.”
Of course, the condition Seasonal Affective Disorder is very real, as people get very depressed with the onset of winter. But it is not specific to just one day. As days go, Blue Monday is about as real as Black Friday. In other words, it isn’t.
There’s enough to be depressed about these days without a made up day for depression. You might suffer from SAD but Blue Monday, a 24 hour depression window isn’t real.
