Blue Monday - The bigfoot of wellness?

We have all got a favourite urban legend.

Bigfoot or the poor soul who wakes up after a night out in an ice bath with a kidney missing.

They stick (huge nod to the Heath brothers!) because they are simple, emotional, and easy to repeat. They live in our minds and roll off the tongue.

That is not accidental.

Pre-internet, if something traveled between people and generations it had to be memorable and easy to pass on.

Which is exactly why “Blue Monday” exists.

I’m sure you have heard it:

“The third Monday in January is the most depressing day of the year.”

It sounds scientific. It sounds empathetic. It feels believable. Especially in January.

But it was not discovered.

It was created.

Blue Monday originated as a marketing campaign for a travel company, validated by a pseudoscientific formula combining weather, debt and distance from payday to sell flights.

When you stop and think about it, that is remarkable.

A piece of clever marketing has made its way into everyday language about how we talk about our mental health.

This is only slightly less audacious than Coca-Cola deciding what Santa should wear.

What is worth paying attention to is the sentiment behind January itself.

 

January has a way of revealing things.

Not goals.

Not intentions.

Systems.

It exposes whether the structures in your life actually support your wellbeing.

Are you sleeping enough?

Are you eating well?

Are you taking even a few minutes each day to be present and reset, whatever that looks like for you?

Speaking only for myself, this is where I have often fallen short.

Taking deliberate time, without a phone, distraction or thinking about the next thing, has always been the first thing to go on that first day back when all those things I put off just before Christmas loom.

That truth sits at the heart of why we are building ScentXpresso.

Not to fix a single day.

Not to label a month as depressing.

To make space for a small, repeatable moment of calm, built into daily life.

Each and every day.

So I am curious.

What is your favourite urban legend?

Or,

(more importantly!) when do you actually get your window of time to yourself?

Let me know in the comments.

 

Author: Daniel Hartshorn is Co Founder of Flowgreens and a specialist in executive career development. After years of supporting professionals through high stress career transitions, Daniel became deeply interested in the relationship between performance, wellbeing, and nervous system health. He believes sustainable success requires intentional recovery, not just ambition.