BBC NEWS | UK | ‘I don’t like Monday 24 January’

A “part-time tutor” in Wales has derived a formula which suggests that today tomorrow (January 24th) is the empirically most depressing day of the year. Spake the science:

JANUARY BLUES DAY FORMULA
1/8W+(D-d) 3/8xTQ MxNA. Where:
W: Weather
D: Debt
d: Money due in January pay
T: Time since Christmas
Q: Time since failed quit attempt
M: General motivational levels
NA: The need to take action

Put in less strictly mad-scientist terminology:

Any energy from the holiday had worn off by the third week of January, he said.

By Monday, most people will have fallen off the wagon or abandoned the nicotine patches as they fail to keep New Year’s resolutions.

That compounds a sense of failure and knocks confidence needed to get through January.

The fact that the most depressing day fell on a Monday was not planned but a coincidence, he said.

I’m not sure how well this one would hold up under bong-less peer review, but I have to agree that it can be a pretty depressing time of year. Also reminds me we can get one or two more “Fresh Starts and Modest Changes” in under the wire. So stay tuned.

And buck up, sad tomato. It’s not all as bad as it seems, I swear.

Edit 2006-01-23 12:39:29: Eagle-eyed persons – presumably ones who hold jobs or otherwise have a compelling incentive to know what day of the month it is – tell me that a) today is the 23rd because b) this story is from last year. Thanks much for the heads-up. 43 Folders regrets the error, and still thinks it’s kind of a funny story. – The Management

[ Via the 43 Folders Board ]