A staggering and overwhelming emotion of anxiety and stress envelopes you. A feeling of darkness is triggered. It’s the inevitable Monday, that begins the agenda for the next four days. ‘Monday blues’, a very common phenomenon experienced by all the worthy office goers, students and stay at home populace. At the onset of dawn on Monday, the most entrancing scenery appears desolate. The beautiful skyline from your bedroom’s French window looks bleak and dreary even on a bright morning.
How was this term coined and what is the history of this phenomenon?
Very recently in a 2005 Ad campaign for a travel agency, it was declared that 20th January would be a Blue Monday. They claimed to have derived the date after factoring weather conditions, debt level, Christmas time frustrations, failing of new year resolutions and low motivational factors. A complex formula was derived and conveyed to the ignoramus.
If you can make sense of this, then you are lucky. If not, you may as well enjoy the Monday blues and carry it forward to the whole week.
However, the term is not a recent one but goes a few centuries back. There have been songs depicting the sorrows of Monday blues in 1983. There has been reference from 18th-century books referring to the term coming from an excuse to get drunk during the weekend and getting hangovers on Mondays. This is more easily understandable than a complex formula by pseudo-scientists. The New American Cyclopaedia-1863 talks about Monday blues as being prevalent in the 16th century. The churches were decorated with blue colors on Monday preceding Lent. This carried forward to all Mondays for the labor classes. The drunken brawls on weekends resulted in bruises and black eyes, forcing them to stay and nurse their egos and bruises. Although by the end of the century, the phrase has relinquished its alcoholic connotations and begun its association with depression.
So why Blue? Why not Green, Yellow, Red?
Strangely blue symbolizes trust, loyalty, wisdom, confidence, intelligence, faith, truth, and heaven. Being beneficial to the mind and body, it slows human metabolism and brings a soothing effect. Blue is strongly associated with tranquillity and calmness.
This is in complete paradox to the “Monday Blue” Idiom. When used in combination with Monday, the color Blue takes a totally new connotation of sadness, mild depression, low spirits. Strange are the ways of the universe and the person who invented this terminology. In short, every age, every culture is manifested with the syndrome and needs to find a clue to this psychological disorder. Mondays can be dreadful because people are getting drunk, or science has derived a formula. But this enduring mystery transcends explanation.
The whole world wakes up to the beginning of a new week on Mondays. After spending a weekend lounging and lazing, and an hour or two in denial, the Monday morning blues hit us and push us back into the rat race. Mothers struggle to wake their children and working professionals have a hard time getting back to work after a short hiatus.
How do we combat this dreadful trauma from our persona week after week for almost our entire life?