'Don't believe the hype': Why Samaritans is boycotting Blue Monday

Today is 'Blue Monday', but what does it mean and why are mental health organisations boycotting the day?

Blue Monday is a term coined by UK holiday company Sky Travel and refers to the third Monday in January, supposedly the most depressing day of the year.

We can all relate to the January slump - Christmas is over, you're waiting for January pay-day and the weather is cold and wet. So it's understandable that people might look for ways to cheer themselves up.

And many organisations use Blue Monday as an incentive to get Brits to spend money; for example booking holidays or selling tickets to events.

But now, mental health charity Samaritans is speaking out against Blue Monday. Samaritans aims to provide emotional support to anyone in emotional distress, struggling to cope or at risk of suicide. They have a free phone line available to Brits 24/7.

Samaritans wrote on X, formerly Twitter: "Blue Monday isn’t real – don’t believe the hype you see today! Here's why we’re binning it off to make space for Brew Monday instead."

The charity continued with a list of reasons to boycott Blue Monday.

"1. This so called ‘most depressing day of the year’ was quite literally made up in 2005 to help travel companies sell holidays. Yep it’s just a marketing stunt. No science, truth or facts", the thread continued.

"2. It oversimplifies the complex nature of mental health challenges and risks trivialising real emotions and feelings for sales. Life can be tough enough without extra mental health stereotypes like this.

"3. We all have our good and bad days and they have absolutely nothing to do with a random made up day in January. Some days are really hard, and we don’t control when they show up, and that’s OK.

"4. But checking in with