Blue Monday is known as the saddest day of the year and is another of those days that have recently appeared in our lives mixing a day of the week with a colour and nomenclature in English, as is the case of Black Friday, whose origin dates back to the middle of the 20th century.
When is Blue Monday?
Also known as Blue Monday is usually celebrated on the third Monday in January. Specifically, in the year 2025, Blue Monday will be celebrated on 20 January.
But why that day and not another? What is the origin of this peculiar date, in what is considered to be the saddest of the 365 days of the year?
Origin of Blue Monday
We have to go back to 2005 to find out the origin of this day. In 2004, the travel company Sky Travel had detected a sharp drop in bookings during the month of January, which is why they turned to a communications company – Porter Novelli – to find a reason for this drop in demand.
This gave rise to the idea of creating the saddest day of the year (Blue Monday) as part of an advertising campaign. The recipe to combat the melancholy with which to overcome the sadness of this day was as simple as… taking a trip, encouraging users to search for destinations.
Why is Blue Monday the saddest day of the year?
Now that we know how long it has been celebrated and what its origins are, let’s look at how this day was determined.
For the marketing campaign mentioned above, which led to this day being established, Cliff Arnall, a professor at a centre attached to Cardiff University, designed a ‘formula’ in which the saddest day of the year was found.
What does this formula consist of?
Blue Monday Formula
Arnall introduced a series of parameters to take into account based on issues such as weather, possible debts from Christmas shopping or failed attempts at New Year’s resolutions.
In this way, the formula [W + D-d)]x TQ / M x Na sought to give concreteness to this regretful feeling due to Christmas excesses or the low mood or frustration at the inconclusiveness of New Year’s resolutions.
Specifically, the letters of the formula correspond to:
- – ‘W’, the weather.
- – ‘D’ – Christmas debts.
- – The ‘d’, the salary received.
- – ‘T’, the period of time since the Christmas holidays.
- – ‘Q’, the time that has elapsed since the last time you tried to quit a habit and failed.
- – ‘M’, the motivation.
- – ‘NA’, the need to change our lives.
Doubts and controversies about Blue Monday
Since this term has started to become popular, there have been voices criticising the veracity of the scientific method applied to the formula that determines which is the saddest day of the year.
For this reason, it should be pointed out that, however much mathematical formulae are used for the resolution, we are dealing with a purely Marquetinian term, not a scientific one.
However, the fact that we are not dealing with a case that has been resolved from a scientific perspective does not necessarily mean that we are dealing with the saddest day of the year.
Some experts believe that, despite this absence of a scientific-mathematical explanation, it could affect people’s subconscious to receive constant messages that make this day synonymous with sadness.
In other words, it could function as a self-fulfilling prophecy in the face of the volume of information received from the media and social networks, whose birth and evolution has run practically parallel to Blue Monday.
As a curiosity, there is a campaign known as #StopBlueMonday to banish the myths of this day and which was joined by an old acquaintance… Cliff Arnall, the psychologist in charge of developing the formula that set the date, whom we mentioned earlier.
In any case, and although the reticence towards this day is based on its origin as part of an advertising campaign, what is undeniable is that Blue Monday has become a recognised and recognisable day.
