Blue Monday , the third Monday of January, this year on January 20: it is the most melancholy and sad day of the year. Its origins date back to the early 2000s, thanks to Cliff Arnall, a psychologist from the University of Cardiff, who theorized it by mixing psychology and mathematics. Blue Monday was calculated taking into consideration a series of variables, including: the weather, feelings of guilt, but above all the difficulty of resuming the routine at full capacity with the Christmas holidays behind us and seeing the summer ones as very far away. For some years, there has been a lot of talk about it: there are those who recommend as an antidote to make a photographic back up to memories, those who fight it with good-humored foods, those who go to work with the dog.
Beyond the day this is a period of melancholy, we are talking about Winter Blues because we are in the middle of winter, at the beginning of a new year and already with the anxiety of how it will go. Psychiatrists speak of seasonal affective disorder (SAD) which concerns those people who have a serious change of mood with the changing seasons, especially the winter one. So let's reckon with this mood that skids the negative and let's face it. “The sadness for each of us has a different meaning. Negative emotions can, in fact, arise from different situations, but in each of them - if well guided - it is possible to find a positive side to transform them into opportunities ", explains Francesca Zampone, Life Coach and Founder of the Academy of Happiness, who with Wiko reflects on the topic.
Here are some ideas for fighting the Blue Monday / Winter Blues mood
1) Loneliness can be a resource . Being alone means listening to yourself, your emotions, your inner world. It is a way to be able to recognize one's needs and not to fall into a series of dependencies, above all emotional: from the partner, from friends, from a reference figure. Precisely for this reason, learning to be alone is an important step towards building a solid self-esteem. "Fill" the moments of solitude with what you like, for example by cultivating new passions and giving yourself "regular appointments" with yourself. It is a precious chance to spend some time in the company of the most important person in your life: yourself.
2) Reformulate your good intentions. If the objectives set at the beginning of the year are already beginning to waver, try to reformulate them. Try not to say what you want to do (go to the gym, lose weight, learn English etc.) but how you want to feel (fit, competent at work etc.). Starting from the feelings you want to try, it will be easier to find the "right way" to get them. The goals we manage to achieve are only those that really interest us, not those deemed "socially acceptable".
3) Cultivate "gratitude" to always see the glass half full. When we are sad we tend to focus on our shortcomings and we are not objective. A simple but very effective exercise to appreciate the positive sides of life is to try to write 3 to 5 reasons every night, small or large, for which you feel grateful. With this new habit, by dint of writing them, you will realize that there are already many beautiful things in life.
4) Happiness is now! Choose to be happy now: problems and inconveniences are on the agenda because essentially perfect life does not exist. If you keep telling yourself "I will be happy when ..." happiness will never come. Happiness is a choice and you have to choose if you want to pursue it regardless of all the variables that surround you.
