Where did it come from?
Coined by Cardiff Psychologist Cliff Arnell in 2005, Blue Monday is supposedly the most depressing day of the year. The 3rd Monday in January is now spoken of as “Blue Monday”.
Dr. Arnell intended the phrase to be used to spur on motivation and overcome the misery of January however the term seems to have brought more attention to the joyless January month; with Arnell publicly apologizing for bringing attention to the date.
Blue Monday sees us on a “come down” from the overindulgence and excitement of Christmas and is just far enough into the month of January for the realisation of getting back to “normality” to have sunk back in.
The Choices We Make…
We are now facing early darkness and the cold winter, something we neglect to focus on in December because we are surrounded by the nostalgia of Christmas.
It seems to me this is down to the choices we make. We decide to focus on something cheerful in December but let ourselves fall into a January slump when the Christmas songs no longer play on the radio and the television channels are no longer filled with the jolly man in a red suit.
This doesn’t have to be the case, there might not be any national holidays to bring us all together but this is the first month of a new year! Something to be excited about and make our mark on!
New Years Resolutions
I personally don’t set any new years resolutions because I find them to apply too much pressure and just bring about disappointment and stress, but that doesn’t mean I don’t see January as a fresh start.
We are creatures of “there has to be a start and there has to be an end” and this philosophy pushes us to live! So the idea of “new year, new start” comes very naturally to us. Of course, not everything is going to change on January the 1st but it’s a time to welcome change, invite adventure and make plans for a brand new shiny chapter in our lives, and if you ask me that’s more exciting than Christmas!
We don’t have to achieve new years resolutions in order to face the new year with optimism and strength. I think of the new year as a new page ready to be written and January is the month to start implementing those changes but not necessarily carrying them out all in one go!
Blue Monday at Discovery Journal
So now we know what Blue Monday is, that doesn’t mean we have to take it as gospel, just because we are told it’s the most depressing day of the year that doesn’t mean we have to make it our most depressing day of the year.
We’ve seized the opportunity to do our part in making this one day possibly much better!
On January the 17th we will have a little surprise for you (which obviously we can't disclose now!) but we hope to give you something to look forward to this coming Blue Monday!
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