Feeling Low On Blue Monday? Reach Out To Those You Love

Today is Blue Monday; known as the most depressing day of the year.?And this year’s could be most depressing ever because of celebrity deaths, anxiety over Brexit, and fears about Donald Trump according to, the expert who coined the phrase.?Dr Cliff Arnall came up with an equation in 2005 and The Telegraph details how his formula?pinpoints the third Monday in January as the most depressing day of 2017.

W=weather

D=debt

d=monthly salary

T=time since Christmas

Q=time since failing our new year’s resolutions

M=low motivational levels,

Na=the feeling of a need to take action.

Dealing with such a weight, be it from mental illness, depression, grief or whatever else, is an extra load to carry on top of life’s pressing demands and it’s’something that’s so important: that we make the extra effort to mind each other. Not just today, but throughout all the worldly madness that exists pre-President Trump. It doesn’t have to be based on big gestures; it can stem from telling someone you love that you’re not okay, from sending a text, a phone call to say I’m thinking of you, I’m here if things are getting really tough.

Because if negative feelings are swirling in your head, they are designed to make you feel alone; to make you feel as if you’re battling demons so great that no one will be able to help you. But those feelings are wrong. You are not alone. You’ll always have someone. A friend, a family member, even a kind stranger from a support group to speak a warm word, to cheer you up and help lift the burden.

So this Blue Monday, reach out and speak out to those you love. Say something nice to the stranger on the street. Mind each other. Life is hard but it can and will always change for the better, primarily due to the generous actions of others. Do what makes you happy today – hot, extra sweet tea at lunch, an invigorating evening run – or do something you don’t perhaps do enough; tell that person it’s okay. That things can and will get better.