Blue Monday explainer - what is it, when is it, and what can you do?
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00:00My name's Tamaya and I'm a reporter for the Lancashire Evening Post.
00:03Today I'm going to be interviewing people in Preston to see what they think about Blue Monday.
00:08For those who don't know, Blue Monday is one day of the year which is said to be the most
00:12depressing out of every single day. Typically it falls on the third Monday of January and this
00:18year it will be on the 20th. Some people cite post-Christmas and New Year's whilst being
00:25financially low and also the cold winter months as a reason for this depressing day whilst others
00:31say that you can't really pin seasonal depression down to one day. So I interviewed the people of
00:35Preston to see what they thought about Blue Monday and whether it rings true for them.
00:39Have you heard of Blue Monday? Yes. The day of the year which is the most depressing.
00:44Does that kind of ring true for you at all? Sometimes. I feel like it's just a bit of a
00:49January thing because it's in January. I don't know whether it's like a placebo because it's
00:57told that it is. A bit of truth. People won't have a lot of money because it's been Christmas
01:05and it will be probably that Friday for a lot of people so they'll be really skint as the money
01:12they did have from Christmas have dried up since then. Mondays are just sad because you've had the
01:18weekend, you've had a day off and now you've got to go back to doing things. Back to work.
01:28Also they say it's kind of like a post-Christmas, post-New Year's thing. Does that sort of resonate
01:32with you at all? Yeah for most people it's a cheery time of year so after that it becomes a
01:39bit sad and it's understandable that more people are depressed on that Monday than the day of the
01:46year. I think the post-Christmas come down is in everyone's mind isn't it? Where you've got to
01:52go back to work and things and especially with the weather it heightens everything.
01:56I can see why people do feel it. What kind of things do you do in January or in the winter
02:01months at all to kind of alleviate the winter depression? I'm very big on trying not to do too
02:06many New Year's goals and trying to completely change my life just because it's January but
02:10definitely just trying to get outside more. Obviously it's hard to get outside, it's
02:14freezing cold but try and get outside more, go for walks, things like that. I know what you should
02:18do, I probably don't do it. Things like exercise and eating well and stuff like that. However it's
02:24quite depressing, the state of the country is quite hard at the moment isn't it? I can understand why
02:30there's a lot of external factors why people are probably having a depressing winter. So
02:35with the cost of living and things like that so it's sort of quite a complex topic.
02:44I'm not the brightest with it, I ignore it and try to busy myself with other things.
02:49That makes sense. And I hope that it goes away when it does and sit with it for a bit.
02:54Yeah. See whether there's anything I can do to fix it, if not,
02:58talk to a friend about it. Yeah talk to a friend about it 100%.