Another Blue Monday

Today — the third Monday of January — is deemed to be Blue Monday, the most depressing day of the year.

However, for many of us — me included at times — most Mondays are difficult to manage as they bring with them that anxiety about all the things that you should have done last week (like your homework when you were in school) and left undone and/or what awaits in the week to come.

The same sense of worry can also creep into the preceding Sunday afternoon and evening — characterised as ‘The Fear’.

For many years I hated Sundays even more than Mondays because I started to get geared up for the week ahead and there was precious little else to fill the space so worry — in my case — naturally took over.

Going to matches on Sunday afternoons was a great fix for many years — whether that was to follow Shamrock Rovers or the Red Hands.

Then there was always cooking a Sunday dinner masterpiece, having a few drinks and blaring loud music to drown out everything else.

However, filling the space on a Sunday only served to put off the inevitable and heightened the drop on a Monday morning.

Thankfully, Mondays and Sundays are not as much of a struggle for me now as they used to be as I’ve been working on tackling my anxiety issues for some time now — but I know for many other people Monday and Sundays still represent a major challenge.

So this Blue Monday, spare a thought for anyone who is struggling and reach out in anyway you can.

If it’s you that’s experiencing the worry and anxiety know that it will pass and give yourself a break — do something you like doing and break up the enormity of this dismal morning.

Talking about giving yourself a break, why don’t you take the next few minutes and look at New Order’s live performance of Blue Monday on Top of the Pops back in 1983 — it’s a cracker!