Claim: Scientists have determined a date in January is statistically the most depressing day of the year.
Verdict: REFUTES

Retrieved passages:
title: Blue Monday (date)
text: Blue Monday (date) Blue Monday is a name given to a day in January (typically the third Monday of the month) claimed to be the most depressing day of the year. The concept was first publicised as part of a 2005 press release from holiday company Sky Travel, which claimed to have calculated the date using an equation. It takes into account weather conditions and thus only applies to the Northern Hemisphere. The idea is considered pseudoscience, with its formula derided by scientists as nonsensical. This date was published in a press release under the name of Cliff Arnall, at

title: Blue Monday (date)
text: that "you can have an infinitely good weekend by staying at home and cutting your travel time to zero". Dean Burnett, a neuroscientist who has worked in the psychology department of Cardiff University, has described the work as "farcical", with "nonsensical measurements". Arnall also says, in a press release commissioned by Wall's, that he has calculated the happiest day of the year—in 2005, 24 June, in 2006, 23 June, in 2007, 20 June in 2009, 19 June, and in 2010, 18 June. So far, this date has fallen close to Midsummer in the Northern Hemisphere (June 21 to 24). Blue

title: Blue Monday (date)
text: the melancholic mind-set of "Blue Monday"". The date is generally reported as falling on the third Monday in January, but also on the second or fourth Monday, or the Monday of the last full week of January. The first such date declared was 24 January in 2005 as part of a Sky Travel press release. The formula uses many factors, including: weather conditions, debt level (the difference between debt accumulated and our ability to pay), time since Christmas, time since failing our new year’s resolutions, low motivational levels and feeling of a need to take action. One equation used by

title: 2012 phenomenon
text: Astrobiologist", a NASA public outreach website, received over 5,000 questions from the public on the subject from 2007, some asking whether they should kill themselves, their children or their pets. In May 2012, an Ipsos poll of 16,000 adults in 21 countries found that 8 percent had experienced fear or anxiety over the possibility of the world ending in December 2012, while an average of 10 percent agreed with the statement "the Mayan calendar, which some say 'ends' in 2012, marks the end of the world", with responses as high as 20 percent in China, 13 percent in Russia, Turkey,

title: Padre Pio
text: the Italian Bishops’ conference for this designation. The bishops forwarded the request to the Vatican, which gave its approval to the designation. He is also “less officially” known as the patron saint of stress relief and the “January blues,” after the Catholic Enquiry Office in London proclaimed him as such. They designated the most depressing day of the year, identified as January 22, as Don’t Worry Be Happy Day, in honor of Padre Pio’s famous advice: “Pray, hope, and don’t worry.” Padre Pio has become one of the world's most popular saints. There are more than 3,000 "Padre Pio Prayer

title: Dump months
text: two concentrations left the post-holiday winter and late summer as the lows that followed the highs. By the 2010s, Burr said, "August is death by ennui. And January is suicide." Similarly, "The A.V. Club" had noted at the same time, "over the past few decades, the American movie schedule has calcified ... January and February are when studios dump their discards, the movies they have low hopes for and want to disavow." Producer Daniel Melnick, whose "Altered States" was moved up a month into the 1980 Christmas season by the studio over his objections, complained about this in an interview

title: January 1
text: January 1 January 1 is the first day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 364 days remaining until the end of the year (365 in leap years). This day is known as New Year's Day since the day marks the beginning of the year. It is also the first day of the first quarter of the year and the first half of the year. During the Middle Ages under the influence of the Catholic Church, many countries in western Europe moved the start of the year to one of several important Christian festivals – December 25 (the

title: Monday
text: businesses owned by Latter-Day Saints close early on Mondays so they and their customers are able to spend more time with their families. A number of popular songs in Western culture feature Monday, often as a day of depression, anxiety, avolition, hysteria, or melancholy (mostly because of its association with the first day of the work week). For example, "Monday, Monday" (1966) from the Mamas & the Papas, "Rainy Days and Mondays" (1971) from the Carpenters, "I Don't Like Mondays" (1979) from the Boomtown Rats, and "Manic Monday" (1986) from the Bangles (written by Prince). There is a band named

title: January
text: January January is the first month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars and the first of seven months to have a length of 31 days. The first day of the month is known as New Year's Day. It is, on average, the coldest month of the year within most of the Northern Hemisphere (where it is the second month of winter) and the warmest month of the year within most of the Southern Hemisphere (where it is the second month of summer). In the Southern hemisphere, January is the seasonal equivalent of July in the Northern hemisphere

title: Doomsday rule
text: years and January 4 a doomsday during leap years, which can be remembered as "the 3rd during 3 years in 4, and the 4th in the 4th year". For March, one can remember the pseudo-date "March 0", which refers to the day before March 1, i.e. the last day of February. For the months April through December, the even numbered months are covered by the double dates 4/4, 6/6, 8/8, 10/10, and 12/12, all of which fall on the doomsday. The odd numbered months can be remembered with the mnemonic "I work from 9 to 5 at the 7-11", i.e.,

title: Determination of the day of the week
text: in the year row (07) is located in column G. The letter in the century row (13) and column G is E, so the day of the week is Friday. January 1 corresponds to G, G in the year row (00) corresponds to F in the century row (20), and F corresponds to Saturday. A pithy formula for the method: ""Date letter (G), letter (G) is in year row (00) for the letter (F) in century row (20), and for the day, the letter (F) become weekday (Saturday)"". Use 17 (in the Gregorian century row, column C) and 83 (in

title: Bad Science (book)
text: boiled egg" or "most depressing day of the year" are revealed to be the product of PR companies using biddable academics to add weight to their marketing campaigns. Among other examples, the speculation by Dr. Oliver Curry (a political theorist at the LSE) that the human race will evolve into two separate races, presented as a science story across the British media, is exposed as a PR stunt for a men's TV channel. The relative scarcity of sensational medical breakthroughs since a golden age of discovery between 1935 and 1975, is seen as motivating the production of dumbed-down stories which

title: Dominical letter
text: goes on to note that "the days of the year from 1 January to 31 December were marked with a continuous recurring cycle of seven letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G... [and that the letter] A is always set against 1 January, B against 2 January, C against 3 January, and so on…" so that G falls to 7 January. He notes that A falls again on "8 January, and also, consequently on 15 January, 22 January and 29 January. Continuing in this way, 30 January is marked with a B, 31 January with a C, and 1

title: Ordinal date
text: purposes it is convenient to count January and February as month 13 and 14 of the previous year, for two reasons: the shortness of February and its variable length. In that case the date counted from 1 March is given by which can also be written with "m" the month number and "d" the date. The formula reflects the fact that any five consecutive months in the range March–January have a total length of 153 days, due to a fixed pattern 31–30–31–30–31 repeating itself twice. "Doomsday" properties: For "m" = 2"n" and "d"="m" we get giving consecutive differences of 63

title: Doomsday rule
text: week in any year. Applying the Doomsday algorithm involves three steps: This technique applies to both the Gregorian calendar A.D. and the Julian calendar, although their doomsdays are usually different days of the week. Since this algorithm involves treating days of the week like numbers modulo 7, John Conway suggests thinking of the days of the week as "Noneday"; or as "Sansday" (for Sunday), "Oneday", "Twosday", "Treblesday", "Foursday", "Fiveday", and "Six-a-day". There are some languages, such as Portuguese and Galician, that base some of the names of the week days in their positional order. The algorithm is simple enough for

title: Doomsday rule
text: on a particular weekday. For any given date up to 28 February falling on a particular weekday, the 3 common years are 5, 11, and 22 years after the leap year, so with intervals of 5, 6, 11, and 6 years. Thus the cycle is the same, but with the 5-year interval after instead of before the leap year. Thus, for any date except 29 February, the intervals between common years falling on a particular weekday are 6, 11, 11. See e.g. at the bottom of the page Common year starting on Monday the years in the range 1906–2091. For

title: Determination of the day of the week
text: for the following month. The item for January is "0"; for February or March, "3"; for December, "12". Day-item: The total, thus reached, must be corrected, by deducting "1" (first adding 7, if the total be "0"), if the date be January or February in a leap year, remembering that every year, divisible by 4, is a Leap Year, excepting only the century-years, in `New Style', when the number of centuries is not so divisible (e.g. 1800). The final result gives the day of the week, "0" meaning Sunday, "1" Monday, and so on. Examples: 17, divided by 4, leaves

title: Hanke–Henry Permanent Calendar
text: days relative to the Gregorian new year (e.g. year 1965 begins 11 days earlier than Gregorian 1965 and year 2036 begins 6 days later than Gregorian 2036), whereas Henry's rule ensures that the new year always begins within four days of the Gregorian new year. The key difference between Irv Bromberg's calendar proposal Symmetry010 and Hanke/Henry’s is the pattern of month lengths, the former putting the longer month in the middle of each quarter (30:31:30). The more ambitious Symmetry454 furthermore has every month consist of exactly 4 or 5 weeks (28:35:28). Both proposals start the week on Monday and are

title: Perennial calendar
text: weekdays. Since this number is evenly divisible by 7, every year can begin on the same weekday. In the twelve-month plan of The World Calendar, for example, the Gregorian year-end date of December 31 is sequestered from the cycle of the week and celebrated as "Worldsday." December 30 falls on a Saturday, Worldsday follows next, and then January 1 begins every new year on a Sunday. The extra day in leap year is treated similarly. Blank-day calendars with thirteen months have also been developed. Among them are: The Georgian calendar, by Hirossa Ap-Iccim (=Rev. Hugh Jones) (1745); The Positivist calendar,

title: Seasonal affective disorder
text: with skepticism, SAD has become well recognized, and his 1993 book, "Winter Blues" has become the standard introduction to the subject. Research on SAD in the United States began in 1979 when Herb Kern, a research engineer, had also noticed that he felt depressed during the winter months. Kern suspected that scarcer light in winter was the cause and discussed the idea with scientists at the NIMH who were working on bodily rhythms. They were intrigued, and responded by devising a lightbox to treat Kern’s depression. Kern felt much better within a few days of treatments, as did other patients