![]() I found out this morning that today is ‘blue Monday’, according to Wikipedia: Blue Monday is the name given to a day in January (typically the third Monday of the month) said by a UK travel company, Sky Travel, to be the most depressing day of the year. The concept was first published in a 2005 press release from the company, which claimed to have calculated the date using an "equation". It takes into account weather conditions and thus only applies to the Northern Hemisphere. Some have dismissed the idea as pseudoscience. It feels appropriate to me to dismiss the idea of one blue Monday, because, even if there can be a validity to this specific day being particularly gloomy, I am sure the blues will not be over tomorrow and did not start this morning. This day can be best taken as a reminder that depression at all level of intensity is real, it is happening to many and in the winter grey days can make it even worst. Accidentally I was in town this morning and I noticed a couple of things that I connect to ‘blue Monday’ one is good, one is great and one is worrisome. Let’s start from the worst and build up. On the bench next to the public transport stop there were two empty bottles of alcohol and an empty chocolate bar packaging. It made me think of alcohol as a way to forget you are sad that is, for me then, even more depressing. The kind of alcoholic drink is marketed for teenagers, and young adult. When you go the website it asks: are you of legal age to drink alcohol? I must admit I was impressed at first, but just until I realized that after having answered no and being blocked from entering the site, I could just click on yes without even needing to exit the site first, so, nice try, not really effective or better said, just for show. Further inside the site I read a short text next to the picture of the product, the message in a nutshell is: drinking this is transforming everything in a party, you can do this everywhere, to make it even cool there is a special little ritual that we created to drink this product, connected to the name of the drink, that makes it even more cool to drink with friends. Wow, I am not surprised, not angered but worried. The best tricks of marketing theory used to hook to a dangerous product to young and ingenious or misinformed people. The thing is that eliminating these kind of products is not the solution either, the only solution is educating people to be critical and even more important to care for themselves enough not to think they need something like shorts of vodka to feel good about themselves. As a parent, as a therapist and as a human being I feel responsible to contribute in a positive way to younger people vision of themselves. The second one, the good one, was the ad of a gym suggesting to ‘boost your blue Monday’ by going to the gym. I like this because it is true that physical activity increases serotonin and reduced the feeling of depression and why not using a valid argument to promote an healthy business. Not sure many people feeling blue today will go for the sportive solution, but it was worth a try. This last one, I feel confident saying, would have fixed me in case I had felt the Monday blue. The idea is already great, ask yourself the question: Who brings colour to your life? I like it because it focuses on the relationships in your life and the positive effects they have on you and your well-being. This alone is a great question to ask yourself from time to time or more often even. I like it because it is done by teenagers. What a great alternative to vodka: connect to each other, support each other’s and make art. Win, win, win. I like it because it is done by asylum seekers, people that have struggled and are struggling and who’s prospects would actually fully justify depression, and for this reason even more inspiring. After having taken this picture I thought: blue Monday no more! On a sidenote, I want to add that the teenage years are just difficult and therefore, if you can, support the teenagers in your life, because they are amazing. Think of teenagers like a caterpillar that is about to transform into a butterfly. I had a sneak preview of what they are capable of when, one week ago, I was invited to visit my oldest daughter's school where teenagers between the age of 16 and 17 were presenting a research paper they had been preparing over the last year or so. I was seriously impressed by the courage in choosing the topic for their research and by how seriously and respectfully the data were collected and presented that day to us. These are some of the topics of the research: What happens when you were subject to violence as a child the moment you become a parent yourself; What can EMDR therapy help to release trauma in people that became psychotic because of the trauma; What are the effect on the life of a woman and her family of having had breast cancer; How to raise children bilingual; How the way we dress reflects our need to fit in and express ourselves; What are the prejudices people have about women (3 male students). In this blue Monday I celebrate how impressive teenager can be. Lara BriozzoAuthor
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