‘Blue Monday’, the 3rd Monday of January, the day that’s statistically supposed to be the most depressing day of the year. It’s all based on the idea that today is the day where we experience a combination of terrible weather and drained bank accounts. Christmas is well and truly over, our new years resolutions are becoming a struggle and our motivation levels have plunged. Of course it’s not true for everyone, but on average a lot of us will supposedly be experiencing something similar to this today.
Two years back I wrote about Blue Monday. I remember waking up, it was on the news and I thought to myself, ‘wow, are we really all that blue today?’ I couldn’t help but wonder how people who are experiencing depression throughout the year would feel today. Whether they would feel as though the nation are somehow underestimating depression, that we’re all claiming that we’ve ‘got it’ today?
This year though something was different. I woke up this morning and my twitter feed was filled with something else. Don’t get me wrong, we’re still talking about today being depressing but it seems like this year we’re talking about things we can actually do. #BrewMonday is encouraging us to have a cuppa and a chat with someone close to us. #BloomingMonday is Mental Health Research’s campaign to get us brightening up and to dress in colourful clothes today. I think it’s incredible to see the campaigns that are being created. Over the space of two years we’ve gone from just talking about a depressing day to actually encouraging action.
Two years ago I worried that today over-looked what depression really means. But today I’m feeling as though we’ve made so much progress. These campaigns are showing us how important it is for us to have a cuppa with somebody today and not to isolate ourselves when we’re feeling low. These campaigns are getting us talking about what it means to feel blue and actually how to get the help we need.
#brewmonday #bloomingmonday #bluemonday
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