Blue Monday (date)

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Blue Monday is a name given to a date stated, as part of a publicity campaign by Sky Travel, to be the most depressing day of the year.

This date was published in a press release under the name of Cliff Arnall, at the time a tutor at the Centre for Lifelong Learning, a Further Education centre attached to Cardiff University. Guardian columnist Dr Ben Goldacre reported that the press release was delivered substantially pre-written to a number of academics by Public Relations agency Porter Novelli, who offered them money to put their names to it. ^[1]. The Guardian later printed a statement from Cardiff University distancing themselves from Arnall: "Cardiff University has asked us to point out that Cliff Arnall... was a former part-time tutor at the university but left in February." ^[2]

Arnall says the date was calculated by using many factors, including: weather conditions, debt level (the difference between debt accumulated and our ability to pay), time since Christmas, time since failing our new year’s resolutions, low motivational levels and feeling of a need to take action. Writing about the calculation, Goldacre stated: ... the fact is that Cliff Arnall's equations ... fail even to make mathematical sense on their own terms. ^[1]

This date typically falls on the Monday of the last full week of January. The date was stated to be 24 January in 2005^[3], 23 January in 2006^[4], 22 January in 2007^[5], and 21 January in 2008^[6].

Mr Arnall also says, in a press release commissioned by Wall's ice cream^[7] that he has calculated the happiest day of the year - in 2005 24 June^[8], and in 2006 23 June^[9]. For this he used a formula which uses factors including: the outdoors, nature, social interaction, childhood summers and positive memories, temperature and holidays. This date falls close to Midsummer.