If you’re feeling bored, out-of-sorts or de-motivated today, there could be a statistical reason for it… Blue Monday.

Or to put it another way, today is the third Monday in January, by which time Christmas has passed, salaried people don’t get paid for ages, and the weather is still, well, Januaryish. Apparently, these factors, when plugged into a mathematical formula (which you can find here) mean that if you’re going to feel down, today’s the day.

Or…

But maybe, just maybe, even knowing that there are sound reasons for feeling a bit under the weather, may in itself be enough to help you feel more cheerful.  (Or, if you’re a rebellious, polarity responder, being told that you “should”, be feeling miserable, will, of course render you perky faster than a Usain Bolt 100metre dash).

There’s another trick that works well too though, and in the light of all the recent images we’re seeing from Haiti (assuming you’re finding this post today) it doesn’t sound as trite as usual.

Make a list of all the things for which you feel grateful, and dwell on each idea within it.

And yes, thinking back to those Haitian images, even if you can only put,”being alive,” on that list, maybe that counts for more than anything else.