Are you feeling Blue?

Have you seen in the news this week that Monday 16th January was indeed ‘Blue Monday’? Are you even aware it exists?

Blue Monday was originally conceived by a PR company in 2005 but has since become a national event. The reason behind it is a series of factors that apparently effect our mood on what is essentially the third Monday in January. The factors which have been noted are the weather, debt level, the amount of time since Christmas, time elapsed since failing our new year’s resolutions, low motivational levels and the feeling of a need to take charge of a situation. 

Can you relate to any of these?

Over the years I can however I guess like most people I have spent more than one day a year (namely the third Monday in January) having feelings around the above-mentioned topic.

Apparently, the date was devised by using a calculation based on an equation, I would share it with you however there are letters involved and once letters entered the area of maths that was the end of my understanding; I mean x equals x does it not, it is a letter although I am sure mathematicians will I tell me otherwise.

Anyway, enough of the science and the maths, for a lot of people blue Monday will be a real thing.

As we enter 2023 and those Christmas / winter bills start to fall on the mat, the days are still dark at each end, resolutions are no longer holding up and much more the feeling of fear, sadness, negative thinking etc. can be deliberating and enough to tip the mood.

It is however at this time we need to do what we can do to ease the situation for ourselves.

Over the years I have come to realise that:

We are all responsible for our own choices – choose to be the opposite of the above however hard that is. We can also choose to take back control and fundamentally deal with the things we can and park the ones we can’t (for example the weather and the dark days).

We can seek help to deal with debt, feelings of sadness and low moods.

We can kick start our resolutions (we can do this any time of the year, it is only tradition that states we start on January 1st).

And finally, we can tap into our own resilience, something we all have but often lose sight of.

I hope you got through Blue Monday OK, if not I hope the above helped, importantly keep this thought in mind:

We have two great days to look forward to, March 20th is International Day of Happiness and then the Happiest Day of the Year (devised again by research and equations!) on June 20th.

So, keep your chin up and keep looking forward, after all spring is just around the corner and time (as in my last article) will indeed fly.

© Beverley Jones

Author of ‘Made it thru the Rain’

www.awakenmentoring.co.uk