Everyone feels depressed, listless and sad at times. This state of affairs is said to reach a peak for most people in Europe on the third Monday of the New Year. But who comes up with something like that?
It doesn’t matter whether it’s the shortest day of the year or the oldest tree in the world: people like superlatives – and then they want to know everything about them. This also applies to the saddest day of the year. The supposedly depressing peak is said to be reached for most people in Europe on the third Monday of every new year. At least that’s how it was presented in 2005 by the British psychologist Cliff Arnall. In this case, the term blue does not stand for the color blue, but is aimed at the well-being of people. It can be translated as sad, depressed or even cold.
But back to Arnall, it was his name that was cited in 2005 in connection with the claim that Blue Monday was the most depressing day of the year. The academic, whose reputation was based on the fact that he previously worked at the Center for Lifelong Learning, a training center at the University of Cardiff, was apparently successfully harnessed to the cart of an advertising agency.
The Blue Monday press release, published by PR agency Porter Novelli, turned out to be a real PR coup. To this day, Blue Monday is reported annually as the saddest day of the year and the story behind it. At the time, the agency used it to advertise for the British travel company Sky Travel. The concept is not based on a representative survey of thousands of people, but is said to have been calculated with a supposedly scientific formula.
Arnall is said to have presented this a second time in “improved form” in 2009. In both variants, various parameters in the form of letters were set in relation to one another. W for the weather, D for accumulated debt minus the salary d that you get in January, Q is the time since the New Year’s resolutions failed, T is the time that has passed since Christmas, M is the personal motivation level and N for the need to get active again.
However, what at first glance looks highly scientific is something that no one in the scientific world can fathom – even remotely. How do you want to mathematically relate money to time and the need to become active again? What units of measurement are used here and how do you finally come up with an emotional state on a specific date that is supposed to occur at the same time for the majority of people in Europe?
Once the equation was out in the world, Arnall didn’t have to wait long for feedback. This was like an outcry of indignation. There is talk of a “silly claim with a ridiculous equation with arbitrary variables”. The accusation of “pseudoscientific nonsense” is also in the air. The aforementioned Cardiff University distanced itself from the psychologist and announced that Arnall was no longer working for them at the time of publication.
Nevertheless, the myth of the saddest day of the year holds up. No wonder, since many people are actually not feeling well during this dark time of the year. It’s cold and cloudy outside and most of the day is spent indoors. Many feel listless, listless and tired. There is simply a lack of sunlight, because this stimulates the release of various substances in the body, such as serotonin, a hormone that has a positive effect on mood and triggers feelings of happiness. The concept simply confirmed many in their emotional world in mid-January. And it works to this day.
Despite all the criticism, Arnall initially stuck to his approach and claimed to be able to calculate the happiest day of the year. He named it for the years 2005 to 2010. All days were between June 18th and 24th, so close to the days of the summer solstice. The publication of this myth was created in cooperation with Wall’s Ice Cream and received far less attention than the action before it.
