Blue Monday is a concept that is already 13 years old, and for many it is more popularly known as the saddest day of the year.
But if you are one of those who discovers for the first time that at some point it was ruled that a day like this exists, and in the same way you wonder how do you get to the conclusion that January 15 is the saddest day of the year 2018… well, stop guessing, we'll tell you.
The saddest day of the year is today
The first time the term Blue Monday began to be used was in 2005, when psychologist Cliff Arnall, a professor at Cardiff University, developed a mathematical formula in which he considered a series of factors that, according to his assessment, could affect the mood of people in general, and with which he intended to discover when the saddest day of the year took place.
This formula contained a series of variables including the weather, the income from the payroll for the month of January, motivation towards the fulfillment of New Year's resolutions, the money spent during Christmas and the time that has passed since said holidays among others.
The conclusion reached by the researcher after observing the results obtained, based on the values given to the variables, was that the third Monday of January was the saddest day of the year.
Obviously, such a resounding statement provoked all kinds of reactions, even more so when it was learned that the study was commissioned by Sky Travel , a travel agency, with the aim of analyzing customer behavior trends when traveling.
Miscellaneous reactions
Without going any further, Cardiff University itself was one of the first to distance itself from Arnall with the sole argument that because of then I was no longer working with them. All a most empirical reasoning, yes sir.
On the other hand, among the detractors of the idea are all those who are willing to sharpen any piece of news, calling out as pseudoscience those data that they do not even understand by approximation (among them some will have to they suspended statistics in their student days).
However, there are also people who are discerning enough to see just one more piece of probability and portray that, generically in Western cultures, there may be more tendency to pessimism and a drop in mood when the payroll for December and January has melted during Christmas, when after signing up for a gym that they don't go to and verifying that they can't follow the diet to get rid of nougat lores.
Is the Blue Monday formula valid?
Actually, it could well be said that the famous Blue Monday formula has the same ability to hit the saddest day of the year as another study of the gazillions out there for quantify something as subjective as a person's level of happiness or how nice your neighbor is based on the floor they live on.
In short, and drawing conclusions, remember that if you feel more taciturn on January 15th, it may be because the statistics that point to it as the saddest day of the year make no mistake.
In that case, and just in case, it wouldn't hurt to check how your New Year's resolutions are going and, if you're into extreme sports, take a look at your bank account to see how you've managed over the last month.