Blue Monday brings a smile to GREEN

As Blue Monday comes to an end even we have been surprised by the press coverage we have generated on the most depressing day of the year.

This is the second time GREEN has beat the Blue Monday Blues with a one-off campaign in support of the Samaritans. Blue Monday, 'the worst day of the year', was first defined by Dr Cliff Arnall and marks the final full week of January when people experience a series of combined depressive effects.

To help people tackle the blues and stay smiling on Blue Monday we invited people to get involved in a range of activities that are taking place across the UK.

At GREEN's offices in Yorkshire we built our own beach and held a party - complete with Hawiain shirts and music.

In London Samaritans volunteers were on hand at London's Victoria station during rush-hour handing out packets of Yorkshire Tea and advice on de-stressing to commuters.

Meanwhile, Yorkshire Housing Group was handing out Positive Social Behaviour Orders (PoSBOs) rather than ASBOs to young people from across the region to reward them for their efforts to make local communities happier and friendlier.

All great stuff and all taken up by the media including The Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Daily Express, Daily Mail, Independent among others. Loads of coverage too in the big regional titles as well as mentions on Radio 4's Today programme, BBC Radio Leeds and BBC Radio Kent. Indeed, tonight Andy will be interviewed by Colombia Radio.

What has been most interesting for anyone remotely interested in social media has been the reaction of the blogosphere. A quick search on Blue Monday on Google Blog search returns more than 290,000 mentions.

Meanwhile, a similar search on Technorati throws up 269,821 results. Now I accept a lot of these will be spurious - but just shows if you hit on a subject which has legitamcy with a lot of people it can quickly go viral.

Top marks to Andy for coming up with the idea, Simon for implementing it, supported by Lorna Bunnell - who is here on work experience for John Moore's University, Liverpool.

Blue Monday was devised using the following mathematical equation:

[W + (D-d)] x TQ

M x NA

The model was broken down using six immediately identifiable factors: weather (W), debt (d), time since Christmas (T), time since failing our new year's resolutions (Q), low motivational levels (M) and the feeling of a need to take action (Na). The equation calculates that Monday, January 22 is officially the worst day of the year, when the Christmas glow has faded away, New Year's resolutions have been broken, cold winter weather has set in and credit card bills will be landing on doormats across the land - whilst the January pay-cheque is still one week away.