Mondays are always a little rough, but this one is much worse than most, with yesterday's Saints' loss.
This is not the way we wanted to start the week.
A Saints' loss, especially one this big, has the whole city in a Monday funk. But, we're likely not alone in our misery.
This is Blue Monday, said to be the saddest, most miserable day of the year. The holidays are over, though we're likely still paying for them.
"People fall into a slump with the holidays ending," says Dr. Michelle Moore, Clinical Psychologist with LSU Health New Orleans. "They've likely got less cash in their bank accounts, and they've probably broken those New Year's resolutions by now, sinking those high hopes for positive changes and feeling less motivated to take action."
Dr. Moore says, while Blue Monday may be mostly a myth, seasonal affective disorder, a type of depression that occurs this time of year, is very real.
"The amount of daylight, the amount of sunlight that you have has a direct effect on your mood. The way our mood shifts is because of how short the days are, which goes along with winter," says Moore.
"I think it depends on where you live, though. People get very depressed, and the cold weather has a lot to do with it. But I think it's very different for those of us who live in the South, particularly in New Orleans." And, she says we've got something going for us here that no one else in the country has.
"We enter a new kind of festival season, which doesn't happen in other parts of the country. In New Orleans, Carnival season has begun."
Blue Monday came to be in 2005, when psychologist Cliff Arnall, a lecturer at the University of Cardiff in South Wales who specializes in seasonal disorders, deemed the third Monday of January the worst day of the calendar year.
Arnall even created a Blue Monday formula: W means weather, D represents debt, d is for monthly income, T equals time since Christmas, and q is the time since we broke our New Year’s resolutions. M stands for low motivation levels, and Na is the need to take action. It doesn't take a math genius to realize that this all adds up to some serious gloom.
But, during football season here in New Orleans..."If the Saints win on Sunday, Monday's always a wonderful day."