Give up the gimmick | Is it time HR finally ditched 'Blue Monday' for good?

For many years now, HR has known the truth about Blue Monday. The formula behind it has been widely debunked, the science doesn’t hold up, and the idea of crowning a single Monday in January as “the most depressing day of the year” has long since been exposed as a marketing construct to sell package holidays, rather than a medical or psychological reality.

And yet, every January, Blue Monday rolls back into view. Not because anyone genuinely believes it, but because it has become a convenient hook. A moment to pause and talk about mental wellbeing. A line in the sand that allows organisations to say: we’re acknowledging this, and we care.