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BBC: "I want to shoo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oot...the whole day down..."

Submitted by Merlin on January 23, 2006 - 8:51am.

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 ]

in

My father has operated a...

Submitted by Craig Hughes (not verified) on January 23, 2006 - 10:38am.

My father has operated a group of Psychiatric hospitals for a few decades now, and he says that the only predictor of occupancy rates that he’s ever been able to track is the annual “Daffodil effect”. In approximately April in the UK where he operates, occupancy rates often rise (not middle of January). When the Dafs bloom, and you’re still gloomy, it’s time to check in, goes the theory.

Actually, he notes one other phenomenon to do with occupancy rates, which is that they fall when there’s a major event on TV (eg soccer world cup, death of Princess Diana, war in Iraq, etc). The theory here is that people are glued to the tube and either too distracted to introspectively decide it’s time to check in, or they’re simply off the streets and not getting into trouble which leads to them checking in.