The back end of January has been marked as one of the most depressing times of the year, due to the typical dreary weather, post-holiday blues, debt mounting up from Christmas and failed new year resolutions sinking in. However, is this actually true? Is this time of the year the most depressing?
‘Blue Monday’ was in fact started by a travel company back in 2005 as a marketing ploy to get people to book in their summer holidays and have something to look forward to. This really took off with other companies and charities joining in creating a cultural phenomenon. It is now a yearly PR event vaguely linked to improving our mental and physical wellbeing.
While ‘Blue Monday’ is scientifically baseless, and psychologist, Cliff Arnall, who created this fake formula for the travel company, since disavowing the concept, there is some truth to this time of the year being harder for people than other times of the year. It is important to distinguish between momentarily feeling down, which most people can relate to from time to time, and experiencing a disabling mental health problem, such as depression.
One type of depression that is frequently linked to this time of the year is Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). It is associated with the seasonal changes of colder, darker days in winter. Having a reduced level of daylight can cause changes to brain chemicals like melatonin and serotonin, causing symptoms such as low mood, lack of interest, feeling guilty/hopeless/restless/irritable, difficulty concentrating and difficultly sleeping.
For other people, however, this time of the year is no worse than usual. Their depression isn’t dictated by the calendar or made up concepts. It’s all the time.
Whichever the type of depression, there is help out there. You can reach out to your GP and national and local mental health charities, they’re all there to help and support. Great national charities that can help are Mental Health (Shout), Mind, Kooth, The Mix and YoungMinds. In our work at Life & Soul, we talk about different coping strategies to help manage our emotions and worries. Great strategies include exercise, talking to someone you trust, spending time in nature, breathing exercises and journalling.
The charity Mental Health Foundation said “Perhaps the true meaning of Blue Monday is that we all have mental health and that there are steps we can take on every day of the year to try and protect it.”
What steps could you take today to protect your mental health?
Links to mental health charities:
www.mentalhealth.org.uk
www.mind.org.uk
www.kooth.com
www.themix.org.uk
www.youngminds.org.uk
