Monday, January 19 is thought by many to be the most depressing day of the year and has been dubbed Blue Monday but is it all just a publicity stunt or is there evidence to support the claim?
Blue Monday, is on the third Monday in January and dates back to a 2005 campaign by Sky Travel to encourage people to take January vacations.
The group reached out to Cliff Arnall, a former lecturer at Cardiff University, to develop an equation to identify the most depressing day of the year.
Arnall considered factors like weather conditions, debt levels, Christmas, New Year’s resolutions and low motivation levels to devise the formula.
Blue Monday has taken off and now the public and other companies have latched on to the idea and are offering solutions to beat the blues.
Scientists, however, say there is no evidence that Blue Monday causes any more sadness than other day of the year.
Dean Burnett is a neuroscientist and current Cardiff lecturer and says it's a PR stunt based on pseudoscience.
"This claim is incorrect. It is unscientific. It is pseudoscientific. It is uber-pseudoscientific," he wrote in 2013.
Burnett blames a slow January news cycles, general post-holidays discontent, and "confirmation bias" for the term's endurance.
"(People) feel down at this time of year, and the Blue Monday claim makes it seem like there are scientific reasons for this," Burnett said in an email exchange. "It also breaks down a very complex issue into something easily quantifiable and simple, and that tends to please a lot of people, giving the impression that the world is predictable and measurable."
A new poll from ATB Financial says that 46 percent of Albertans feel above-average to high levels of stress in January.
"We’re in the heart of winter when it tends to be cold and grey and the holidays are over," says Robert Roach, Senior Analyst from ATB's Economics & Research team. "Many of us are feeling the Christmas spending hangover and our holiday high has shifted to a low."
Respondents said a lack of sleep and financial factors like overspending and worries about the economy and job security were possible reasons for the spike in stress.
"Low oil prices and the impact that will have on Alberta are likely reasons financial stress scored so high," said Roach. "An economic slowdown is forecasted for our province in 2015 and for a lot of us, that brings uncertainty."
Officials at SAIT say students are also impacted by stress at this time of year and they have the added pressure of finishing up final projects before graduation and then hitting the streets to look for a job.
Students were treated to a showing of “The Happy Movie” over the lunch hour on Monday and a new initiative called “The 28 days of Happiness” was launched to help students beat the blues.
“Starting February 1, students who have signed up will receive an email every day with a positive message or activity they can do to boost their spirits,” said Lois Hayward, Manager of Student Development and Counselling at SAIT.
The Calgary Counselling Centre uses the day to create awareness about mental health and has an online and anonymous Depression Screening Test to allow people to chick-in on their emotional well-being.
Click HERE to take the test and visit the Calgary Counselling Centre’s website for more resources.
(With files from Ctvnews.ca)
