Cheer up, Today is Blue Monday
Cheer up, today is Blue Monday, and according to experts, it could be most depressing ever because of celebrity deaths, Brexit, and fears about a Donald Trump presidency in the US, and the weather.
In 2005 Dr Cliff Arnall, formerly of Cardiff University, came up with a light-hearted formula for predicting the gloomiest day of the year based on factors including weather, debts, time since Christmas and motivation.
The equation, created by Dr Arnall suggests that today, 16 January 2017, is the most depressing day of the year for the following reasons:
The weather is grey and cold
The Christmas period is over
People are broke
People are two weeks away from pay day.
The Blue Monday formula, where W is weather, D is debt, d is monthly salary, T is the time passed since Christmas, Q is the time since the failure of an attempt to give something up, M is low motivational level and Na is the need to take action.
Science Seems ok, right?
Not really. One glaring issue with the above ‘formula’ is that Arnall never specified what the units of measurement were – so we have no idea how the equation would work in practice.
Another warning sign should be that it was first put together in conjunction with the Sky Travel channel (which no longer exists), to make people feel like their mood was low and that, perhaps, booking a holiday might solve this.
It looks clever, but makes no mathematical sense and is a good example of fake science.
With that in mind … Keep Calm and make Monday as good as you can!