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Is Today the Most Miserable Day of the Year?
by
findingDulcinea Staff
Dr. Cliff Arnall, a researcher at Britain’s Cardiff University, identifies Jan. 21, 2008—this year’s “Blue Monday”—as the most depressing day of the year. But Time magazine’s Bill Tancer says that dubious honor should assigned to a date in mid-November.
30-Second Summary
Dr. Arnall calls it Blue Monday, and according to his calculations the final full week in January is the nadir of unhappiness for all kinds of people.
The cause of this depression is a mix of bad weather, holiday debts and abandoned New Year’s resolutions.
And according to coverage of last year’s most depressing 24 hours, in British newspaper The Independent, the worst day of the year has to be a Monday.
Phillip Hodson, a fellow of the British Association of Counseling, supports Arnall’s theory, telling the paper that the most depressing time has “got to be around this time of year—we are less contented with our body image because we've been bingeing.”
Arnall’s calculations did not take into account the festivities surrounding Martin Luther King, Jr. Day—Arnall is British, after all. But Time magazine’s Bill Tancer believes the formula to be outdated for another reason.
According to Tancer, an analysis of Internet behavior is a better method for gauging the country’s collective doldrums.
Tancer tracked both the frequency of depression-related Google searches, and the traffic to the Web sites of the nation’s most popular anti-depressants.
“According to our Internet behavior, our depression spikes reliably in mid-November every year, right in time for Thanksgiving, the launch of the holiday season,” Tancer writes.
“So,” Tancer concludes, “despite the failing economy, the storm of the century here in Northern California, a disappointing roster of presidential candidates and deciding that New Year's resolutions aren't for me this year, I'm feeling pretty good about things.”
The cause of this depression is a mix of bad weather, holiday debts and abandoned New Year’s resolutions.
And according to coverage of last year’s most depressing 24 hours, in British newspaper The Independent, the worst day of the year has to be a Monday.
Phillip Hodson, a fellow of the British Association of Counseling, supports Arnall’s theory, telling the paper that the most depressing time has “got to be around this time of year—we are less contented with our body image because we've been bingeing.”
Arnall’s calculations did not take into account the festivities surrounding Martin Luther King, Jr. Day—Arnall is British, after all. But Time magazine’s Bill Tancer believes the formula to be outdated for another reason.
According to Tancer, an analysis of Internet behavior is a better method for gauging the country’s collective doldrums.
Tancer tracked both the frequency of depression-related Google searches, and the traffic to the Web sites of the nation’s most popular anti-depressants.
“According to our Internet behavior, our depression spikes reliably in mid-November every year, right in time for Thanksgiving, the launch of the holiday season,” Tancer writes.
“So,” Tancer concludes, “despite the failing economy, the storm of the century here in Northern California, a disappointing roster of presidential candidates and deciding that New Year's resolutions aren't for me this year, I'm feeling pretty good about things.”
Headline Link: ‘The Most Depressing Day of the Year’
Time magazine writer Bill Tancer takes a look at Arnall's work and concludes that analyzing our Internet behavior is a good way to determine the year’s most doleful day. “In the digital age we're likely to turn to search engines just as often as we would confide in friends and medical professionals to gauge our psychological state,” Tancer writes. By analyzing the search terms used throughout the year, and measuring the traffic to the Web sites of the most popular anti-depressants, Tancer surmises that the country feels most depressed in November.
Source: Time
Background: Last year’s Blue Monday
According to British newspaper The Independent, last year’s Blue Monday was on Jan. 22, 2007. The paper quotes fellow of the British Association for Counseling Phillip Hodson as not only agreeing with Dr Arnall’s assessment of seasonal depression, but reinforcing the idea that the worst day would have to be a Monday. “Our bodies work on a 25-hour clock so that—by the time we get to the weekend—we stay up later. That makes it difficult for us to go to sleep on Sunday and we wake up grumpy,” Hodson told the paper.
Source: The Independent
Related Topics: Holiday season perils
Though celebrated in song as “the most wonderful time of the year,” the holiday season is also a time of depression and high mortality rates—yet it is not as bad as some seem to believe.” Studies have shown that the number of deaths attributed to heart attacks and alcohol-impaired driving increases around the holidays. This year, mortgage and other economic concerns have also made buying gifts and expensive festivities more stressful for many.
Source: findingDulcinea
Reference Material: Ten ways to combat Blue Monday
The Web site BeatBlueMonday.org suggests ten ways to beat the blues on Jan. 21. The advice includes being nice to a stranger, helping the planet and pampering yourself.
Source: BeatBlueMonday.org
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