'Blue Monday' is not real, but mental health is still important

"Blue Monday" is a bogus "equation", created to market Sky Travel holidays. The evidence shows low mood doesn't vary with season. Using pseudoscience to "just start a conversation" is not helpful. Mental health discussions should be built on honesty.https://www.badscience.net/2014/01/blue-monday-is-churnalism-heres-me-shouting-about-it-at-npr-on-the-media/ …

Blue Monday is a load of old dog balls and I’m glad there is finally an explanation as to exactly why it came about https://twitter.com/louiseridley/status/1218984020421246977 …

I know that lots of good stuff will be done in its name and that’s wonderful, but it is still a form of misinformation and “fake news”, and that should be acknowledged even when it’s something positive!

Time again for my annual piece: BLUE MONDAY ISN'T REALhttps://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2020/01/reminder-blue-monday-isnt-real/ …

it's fitting really as Blue Monday is bullshit pseudoscience invented by a holiday company, but still kind of grim seeing so many brands jumping on the hashtag like "uwu depressed? have you considered distracting yourself from your awful existence with some service offerings"

Advertisers. STOP IT WITH THIS BLUE MONDAY BOLLOCKS. Stop telling people they’re miserable so they’ll buy your shit.

There is only one true #BlueMonday — and it is a banging New Order song. The other is a tedious PR stunt which somehow still trends every single year.

If you use Blue Monday to promote your business and don’t have any real mental health policies in place, please, PLEASE use today to make sure your staff have the support they need - not as a clout chasing exercise.

if you’re a company trying to peddle products to depressives on Blue Monday, how about donating your profits to mental health charities for the next 24 hours instead

The bad news is #BlueMonday isn’t a real thing... it’s a marketing ploy based in pseudoscience created by a travel company who wanted to sell holidays. The good news is you don’t have to limit your depression to just one day. In fact, you can be mentally ill all year round!

And since depression isn’t worse on any one particular day, and since it can actually be a horrid, pervasive thing that seems to taint your whole life, please know this... you’re not alone, you’re stronger than it, and it’s possible to feel better. I am living proof of that

It's all too easy to ignore this myth of a 'blue monday' but learning that a good friend has committed suicide hurts so much. Trying to understand is so impossibly difficult. Please people support one another.

Mild take: The phenomenon that lead to the poll data that lead to the concept of "Blue Monday" is actually real, but that knowledge was then used to sell holidays rather than saying anything about our culture of wage labour and what it does to people

This is not surprising since the exercise was always about selling stuff, not about investigating the effects of the workplace on mental health, but "Blue Monday isn't real" doesn't mean you feel any less shitty heading in to work today

Feel like there's an important postscript to add here which is that I am not a psychologist, I am a man with a twitter account and a keyboard and some opinions

Blue Monday. It might be nonsense, but spare a thought for the 5m without an employer looking out for their #mentalhealth. The self-employed. If you work with #freelancers, use today to ask if there's anything more you can do to support the great work they do for you.

Yes yes, Blue Monday isn't a thing. But SAD sure is, and we're still deep in the depths of winter here so mental health check in. It's a month past the sun coming back bit by bit, how's everyone doing today?