It’s a day feared by many: the third Monday in January, or “Blue Monday”, which this year falls on January 20, 2025. A name that comes from a study published in 2005, balancing different factors such as the weather or the financial blow after the holidays, but which owes its existence to a commercial operation.
Do you feel a lack of motivation, especially this Monday, January 20, 2025? This is perhaps due to “Blue Monday”, or “depressed Monday” which, according to a study published in 2005 by a psychologist attached to the University of Cardiff, in Wales, corresponds each year to the third Monday in January. Why that day, and not another?
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In reality, Cliff Arnall, the author of this study, takes into account very unpositive parameters which would converge this Monday: the bad weather (in the northern hemisphere), the distance from the end of year holidays and the next vacations that don’t arrive right away, financial difficulties after the holidays and sales, the salary that hasn’t yet arrived and finally the failure of good resolutions.
A crazy equation
In this study, the psychologist puts forward a self-evident equation. “W” stands for “Weather”, “d” for “debt”, “T” for “Time” (time since Christmas), “Q” for “time since our New Year’s resolutions” , “M” for “Lack of motivation” and “Na” for “need to act”.
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“Blue Monday”: why the third Monday in January is considered (wrongly) as “depressing”
© Wikipedia
However, this equation is not solvable. Factors are unquantifiable, such as the weather, lack of motivation or even the need to act. Furthermore, its author admitted in 2010 that there was nothing scientific about this equation…
A commercial operation
Despite everything, this study can be supplemented by another survey, published in 2013 by the business consulting firm FirstCare. He noted a peak in absenteeism from work in the United Kingdom on the third Monday in January. All of this work, however, has a marketing purpose. Indeed, Cliff Arnall’s study was carried out as part of a marketing operation for the Sky Travel agency, which wanted to promote the benefits of traveling in January.
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No “depressing” character
Although it may happen that for some, bad weather and the distance from the end-of-year holidays make this Blue Monday a sad day, we can nevertheless dismiss the term “depressing”. Neuroscience researcher Dean Burnett recalled in the Guardian that this adjective was “disrespectful to those who suffer from real depression, because it is implied that it is a temporary and minor experience, from which everyone suffers” , reports The World.
Also, according to the Journal of affective disordersspecialist in mood disorders, “neither the times of the year nor weather variations due to the seasons would have a significant influence on the depressive symptoms of the majority of the population”. In summary, this third Monday in January is a day like any other, and is therefore not the source of any possible demotivation!
