The factors that make us wake up thinking that there is torture

Again the alarm clock. It's Monday. And not any Monday. It's the 'Blue Monday', the saddest day of the year. And back to routine, laziness. And that ceiling, with fat gotelé. How could that be fashionable at any time? What a desire to change house. And car. And as a couple, because he snores and has that insufferable mania to leave the pots all night soaking. You also want to change jobs; of boss, colleagues, office. Of city, of country. Of planet and life.

"We must not fall into the trap of confusing thought with reality." A categorical phrase by psychologist Jesús Matos, an expert in personal development and sadness management, who invites us to reflect on whether, really, everything around us is exactly the same as yesterday, with the difference that today, we feel punctually. bad: "Many times we fail to find the stimulus that triggers the sadness, an unconscious feeling, and that leads us to not know how to manage it. Therefore, we must relativize. "

Matos exposes a series of factors and triggers that feeling of depression that leads to think that our life is disgusting in the 'Blue Monday'. Some external and other internal, leading to the unfounded certainty that our existence has no remedy. That stinks. He exposes them because there is nothing like knowing the enemy to decide how to face him. And well that in this case there is not only one but several, but it does not hurt to face them.

Rain, darkness ... the cold winter
"Many studies say that winter weather changes influence negatively and that the body generates a stress response to try to adapt," explains the psychologist, who also alludes to the large number of healing therapies based on sunlight. "It's cold, the days are shorter, the heavens are covered ... Everything feeds the feeling of sadness," he says.

Fatigue and lack of sleep
In addition to bad mood, the fact of not resting properly or sufficiently generates "physiological sensations very similar to those of sadness, which lead us to be confused," says Matos. And it also confirms that this feeling ends up becoming, effectively, dejection.

The hangover
Ethyl ravages will not only convert the liver into a kind of foie gras and the brain into a pasty mass of slow reflexes, but "because alcohol is a substance that generates euphoria at a given moment but, over time, generates the opposite answer, will also be an engine of sadness, "says the psychologist, who talks about spirits as depressants and drunken substances - rather, its consequence in the form of a hangover - as the germ of a situation of distaste .

The hormonal cycles
Menstrual? Yes: experience suggests that the hormonal alterations derived from the process of menstruation are related to depression and sadness. But do not think only about women: "Men also go through cycles of fluctuations that directly affect the state of mind," confirms the expert. And numerous studies support his words, linking sedentary life and bad routines with the gradual decline in testosterone levels

The anxiety
Or the permanence in a constant state of 'rumination': "The most ruminative people, the ones who go around the most things, go through more prolonged states of sadness," says the expert. Either by anticipating events or by gloating over past situations, the fact of not stopping anxiety will also lead to the most cruel spiral of sadness.

The same sadness
It seems obvious. But it must be emphasized that the same sadness is generating more sadness. The psychologist explains: "If you feel down and do nothing to avoid it, you will be inevitably wrapped in a spiral that only more and more sadness."

Inactivity
That vicious circle initiated by the feeling of sadness will push the lack of movement and activity, reinforcing the springs of that loop and moving more and more the exit door.

Because…
Therefore, the psychologist Jesus Matos encourages not to be carried away by the shadows: "The sadness asks you to get into bed and forget about the world but, instead, it is appropriate to ask what can be done to reverse that situation and get to it as soon as possible " It is convenient to think coldly and ask ourselves if we really have well-founded reasons to feel sad and, if this is not the case, it is fundamental to relativize and realize that perhaps that feeling is temporary, punctual. And that is not relevant enough to make us think that our house is horrible; our car, a scrap, and our partner, an odious being.

The reality is that the famous 'Blue Monday', that pseudoscientific construct that affirms that today is the saddest day of the year, has nothing to do with the sadness we are suffering. These are mere orchestrated lucubrations to build an advertising strategy. Therefore, think that your life is not necessarily worse than just 24 hours ago. That same tomorrow is better. Or maybe not, but to determine it you must think coldly if your sadness is or is not founded. And maybe I should also think that it could be worse; it could rain.