tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/january-34659/articlesJanuary – The Conversation2024-01-10T22:10:05Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2208512024-01-10T22:10:05Z2024-01-10T22:10:05ZTime for a Weed-Free January? How cannabis users could benefit from a ‘dry’ month<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/time-for-a-weed-free-january-how-cannabis-users-could-benefit-from-a-dry-month" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>By now, most are familiar with the idea of Dry January, a voluntary month without alcohol that follows a month when many drink more than usual.</p>
<p>The idea of <a href="https://time.com/6552262/dry-january-origins-alcohol-drinking/">Dry January</a> started in the United Kingdom in 2012, and has become popular internationally since then. The point is to use a date on the calendar that traditionally prompts resolutions to encourage drinkers to make a month-long commitment to giving their bodies a break and resetting their attitudes and habits in a healthier way for the rest of the year and possibly beyond.</p>
<p>For those who use cannabis, the idea of taking a month off is also worth considering, whether it’s January or not.</p>
<h2>1 in 4 use cannabis</h2>
<p>Canadians are among the world’s biggest consumers of cannabis, especially since <a href="https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/cj-jp/cannabis/">it was legalized</a> in 2018. Prior to legalization, about 15 per cent of adults used cannabis once a year or more. Today, about <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/drugs-medication/cannabis/research-data/canadian-cannabis-survey-2022-summary.html">one in four</a> adult Canadians use cannabis once a year or more, with a higher concentration among young adults.</p>
<p>Frequency of use varies widely, but there is a sizable group of people who are daily or near-daily users — <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/drugs-medication/cannabis/research-data/canadian-cannabis-survey-2022-summary.html">about 25 per cent</a>. Within that group, nearly three-quarters report <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/82-003-x/2023006/article/00001-eng.htm">impaired control over their cannabis use</a>, a key feature of <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/drugs-medication/cannabis/health-effects/addiction.html">cannabis use disorder</a>, the medical definition of cannabis addiction.</p>
<p>Though daily use and cannabis use disorder are not identical, daily use is nonetheless a reasonable way to identify people who are more likely to experience negative consequences and might benefit from taking a break. </p>
<p>Beyond frequency, the amount of cannabis one uses and the concentration of <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/drugs-medication/cannabis/about.html">THC, the psychoactive component of cannabis,</a> are important considerations in the likelihood of experiencing harms. Many of the risks and harms from cannabis scale to the amount of THC consumed, so it’s not just a matter of consuming less frequently.</p>
<h2>The benefits of a weed-free month</h2>
<p>A Weed-Free January could do more good than cannabis users may realize. Any month will do, of course, but January is traditionally a time for resolutions and fresh starts, so it may be the most natural time to cut out weed.</p>
<p>Based on the existing evidence, regular cannabis users could expect to experience a number of positive physical and lifestyle changes from a 31-day pause.</p>
<p>Among them:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Resetting one’s tolerance for cannabis. In response to cannabis use, the body’s <a href="https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/the-endocannabinoid-system-essential-and-mysterious-202108112569">endocannabinoid system</a> adapts over time, causing users to develop tolerance. Indeed, for heavy users, unpleasant symptoms of withdrawal also follow these adaptations, although cannabis withdrawal is not life-threatening like alcohol withdrawal. Users could expect that taking a month off would be enough for the body to revert to its natural set-points.</p></li>
<li><p>Clearing the mental cobwebs. Cannabis use is associated with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2015.12.002">reduced cognitive functioning</a>, especially <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1206820109">heavy persistent use</a>. Even short breaks from cannabis have been found to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2018.0335">reduce cognitive consequences</a>, and a month of abstinence has been shown to return cognitive functioning to the level of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/archpsyc.58.10.909">non-cannabis users</a>.</p></li>
<li><p>Giving your lungs a break. It’s well established that inhaling combusted cannabis smoke is bad for the lungs <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rmed.2023.107494">in a number of ways</a>, which may be one of the reasons cannabis has been linked to <a href="https://newsroom.heart.org/news/marijuana-use-linked-with-increased-risk-of-heart-attack-heart-failure">heart attack and stroke risk</a>.</p></li>
<li><p>Developing other habits and routines that take advantage of a clearer mind, such as sports, reading and sober socializing. A rich repertoire of activities without substance use is an important lifestyle counterbalance.</p></li>
<li><p>Saving money. Cannabis is not cheap and adds up quickly if you consume daily. A Weed-Free January could save hundreds of dollars.</p></li>
<li><p>Taking stock of whether you may have a problem. Cannabis use disorder is real and can have serious consequences. A weed-free month can provide a chance to do a self-check and see how hard it is to stop. If quitting for a month is impossible (or feels like torture), it may be time to talk to a health professional. <a href="https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/current-treatments-for-cannabis-use-disorder">Effective treatments do exist for cannabis use disorder</a>.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Importantly, many people have authorizations to use medical cannabis to manage a variety of conditions and this is not to suggest that those individuals should abruptly stop for a month, just as it would be foolhardy to recommend an annual abstinence from cholesterol, blood-pressure, or other medications. For medical cannabis patients who think it might be beneficial to take a break, a chat with their authorizing physician or family doctor would be in order.</p>
<p>Bottom line, though, if you use recreational cannabis regularly, especially daily, having a Weed-Free January could be both good for your health and a good way to promote other healthy resolutions. A real win-win.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220851/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James MacKillop receives research funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Health Canada, the National Institutes of Health, and other non-profit funders. He is a principal and senior scientist in Beam Diagnostics, Inc., a technology transfer startup. No Beam products or services are related to this topic. MacKillop has previously consulted to Clairvoyant Therapeutics, Inc. </span></em></p>A Weed-Free January could do more good than cannabis users may realize. Regular cannabis users could expect to experience a number of positive physical and lifestyle changes from a 31-day pause.James MacKillop, Peter Boris Chair in Addictions Research; Director, Peter Boris Centre for Addictions Research; Director, Michael G. DeGroote Centre for Medicinal Cannabis Research; Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences, McMaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1977192023-01-13T16:14:47Z2023-01-13T16:14:47ZWhy winter walks at the seaside are good for you<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504243/original/file-20230112-18-hj1gag.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The right kind of blue. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/6Fkyxd8_IBY">Nick Page/Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Dreary weather, freezing temperatures, long dark days, no festivities to look forward to – it’s beginning to feel at lot like the middle of January.
The idea that there is a “<a href="https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/explore-mental-health/blogs/what-does-blue-monday-mean-our-mental-health">Blue Monday</a>” somewhere around the middle of the month where people feel most miserable may be a <a href="https://theconversation.com/blue-monday-is-a-hoax-but-it-could-become-the-most-depressing-day-of-the-year-if-you-dont-watch-out-89988">bit of a myth</a>, but <a href="https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/conditions/seasonal-affective-disorder-sad/overview/">seasonal affective disorder</a> is real enough. No wonder many people take off at this time of year in search of <a href="https://inspain.news/30-rise-in-places-from-the-uk-to-the-canary-islands-for-this-winter/">winter sun</a>. </p>
<p>To lift your mood, however, you don’t need to go as far as that. Plenty of us go for <a href="https://www.ramblers.org.uk/news/latest-news/2021/december/brits-look-to-winter-walking-boost.aspx">winter walks</a> near nature, and for many that can mean a trip to the local coast. The <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935120310665">health benefits</a> of spending time near the seaside are increasingly well documented, <a href="https://positivepsychology.com/subjective-well-being/">including making people</a> feel happier and more relaxed. </p>
<p>A good number of people <a href="https://www.propertywire.com/news/uk/more-than-half-of-brits-want-to-buy-a-home-near-the-coast/">even move</a> to the coast in the belief that they will enjoy these benefits all the time. This may well be mentally beneficial, yet it has become <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1438463917302699">clear to researchers</a> that those who visit the seaside for leisure get more out of it. Our latest research helps to explain why.</p>
<h2>Oh I do like to…</h2>
<p>Visiting the seaside for its perceived health benefits is hardly a new phenomenon. As far back as the <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780815359159-3/keeping-leisure-mind-sean-gammon-david-jarratt">mid-18th century</a>, city dwellers sought out places offering cleaner air and the rhythms of nature. </p>
<p>As industrialisation progressed during the 19th century, the desire to visit the coast stemmed as much from a need to escape polluted, overcrowded cities as a desire to be near the sea. This was when the modern idea of the seaside was essentially “invented”, and English coastal towns like Blackpool, Skegness and Scarborough began to boom. </p>
<p>These days, of course, the sticks of rock and donkey rides have mostly been swapped for those more exotic locations. We are more likely to go to the local coast for a few hours away from the stresses of modern life in some beautiful scenery. </p>
<p>On the question of why this might be more beneficial than living at the coast, <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780203381731-10/leisure-laboratory-strange-notions-psychological-research-subjective-nature-leisure-roger-mannell">one suggested possibility</a> is that visitors are in more of a “leisure state of mind”. They are <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780815359159-3/keeping-leisure-mind-sean-gammon-david-jarratt">more open</a> and sensitive to the health-giving properties of coastal areas because they have time to <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781315088426/savoring-fred-bryant-joseph-veroff">savour the moment</a> and become attuned to the seaside. If so, this might amplify any health benefits. </p>
<h2>Our research</h2>
<p>To test this idea, <a href="https://researchonline.gcu.ac.uk/en/publications/being-at-leisure-in-blue-spaces-the-role-of-leisure-in-amplifying">we surveyed 333 people</a> at five seaside locations in Lancashire in north-west England (Lytham St Annes, Blackpool, Cleveleys, Fleetwood and Morecambe). We gauged their sense of wellbeing by asking them eight questions, including whether they felt better when looking out at the sea, more relaxed in this environment, and had happy memories of being at the seaside. </p>
<p>Respondents had to score each question out of 4, with 0 being no benefit and 4 being the highest benefit, allowing for a maximum “Seaside Wellbeing Index” (or SWI) score of 32. We conducted our surveys in the summertime, but the findings are likely to be applicable the year round. </p>
<p>Most respondents displayed relatively high scores, which was unsurprising, since we know the seaside helps people to relax and feel well. We split respondents into two broad groups, those at work and those at leisure. The people we surveyed were either working at the time they were surveyed, or there for leisure purposes (walking or sitting near the sea). Occupations of the workers ranged from coach driver to chef to nurse.</p>
<p>Of those at leisure, we broke them down into three further sub-groups: overnight visitors, day visitors and local residents. Visitors displayed higher scores than local residents. Those who scored highest were visitors staying overnight (an average SWI score of 27.2 compared to 25.9 for local residents, with day visitors actually slightly lower at 25.6). This suggests that the longer you stay away from home, the more relaxed and leisurely you become. </p>
<p>People who were working scored lower on average than those at leisure. The average SWI scores were 22.4 for workers, 26.2 for those at leisure, a statistically significant difference of 3.8. </p>
<p>This might mean that working people value the seaside environment less. Interestingly, however, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/26349817221134439">our research</a> also indicates that 70% of seaside workers would rather work by the sea than inland. This takes us back to the idea that while visitors might benefit most from being at the seaside, everyone benefits to some extent. It’s also worth noting there was a subtle difference in average SWI scores for people living away from the sea (25.8) and those living nearby (24.6).</p>
<h2>Implications</h2>
<p>Being at leisure gives individuals time not just to see but to properly soak up the seaside environment. This is why it is the perfect antidote to being confined in cities and the stresses of everyday life. In January, as we look towards the long year ahead, leisure time can therefore be well spent at the coast. Those marketing seaside destinations and managing the visitor experience would do well to highlight the need for visitors to slow down and savour the seaside environment. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504453/original/file-20230113-22-2rb37v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People walking along a rocky beach at Bridport" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504453/original/file-20230113-22-2rb37v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504453/original/file-20230113-22-2rb37v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504453/original/file-20230113-22-2rb37v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504453/original/file-20230113-22-2rb37v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504453/original/file-20230113-22-2rb37v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504453/original/file-20230113-22-2rb37v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504453/original/file-20230113-22-2rb37v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Much better than a walk round the shops.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/owE-czC_nIc">Ben Collins/Unsplash</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are also implications for doctors. Over the past decade, there is evidence that even the most cynical within the medical community are accepting <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35450339/">the benefits</a> that natural environments can have on health and well-being. As part of this, it’s clearly worth encouraging people to get away from their lives for a day or two and take time at the seaside. </p>
<p>So if you’re looking for something to do in the depths of January, walking on beaches is not just a way of killing time. It’s a form of medicine. So why not get your coat on and head for the seaside – a couple of windswept hours might make all the difference.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197719/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Getting your coat on is the perfect antidote to the January blues.Nick Davies, Lecturer and Programme Leader, BA International Tourism and Events Management, Glasgow Caledonian UniversitySean J Gammon, Reader in Leisure and Tourism Management, University of Central LancashireLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1969812023-01-03T20:50:15Z2023-01-03T20:50:15ZHow 19th-century Victorians’ wellness resolutions were about self-help — and playful ritual fun<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502947/original/file-20230103-26-4tnfru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C464%2C2547%2C1295&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">January is named after the two-faced Roman god Janus, and the Victorians understood this has long been a season of looking backward as much as forward, and not just in search of lessons.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/how-19th-century-victorians--wellness-resolutions-were-about-self-help-—-and-playful-ritual-fun" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>On Jan. 1, 1887, a poem appeared in two British newspapers. </p>
<p>“<a href="https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/readers-guide/rg_resolutions1.htm">I am resolved throughout the year</a> / To lay my vices on the shelf,” begins “New Year Resolutions.” </p>
<p>In what now reads like a familiar vow of post-holiday abstinence, a young <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/rudyard-kipling">Rudyard Kipling lists</a> the temptations of women, horses and the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/whist">card game whist</a>, pledging “A godly, sober course to steer / and love my neighbour as myself.” </p>
<p>According to <a href="https://www.history.com/news/the-history-of-new-years-resolutions#:%7E:text=The%20ancient%20Babylonians%20are%20said,when%20the%20crops%20were%20planted.">some sources,</a> the practice of making resolutions at the new year <a href="https://theconversation.com/where-did-the-new-years-resolution-come-from-well-weve-been-making-them-for-4-000-years-196661">can be traced back 4,000 years</a>, originating with the ancient Babylonians. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.17744/mehc.43.3.05">Opinions differ</a> on the origins of contemporary wellness culture, often the packaging for self-improvement through self-denial at the new year.</p>
<p>As sociolegal scholar <a href="https://read.dukeupress.edu/jhppl/article/39/5/957/13664/What-Is-Wellness-Now">Anna Kirkland describes,</a> wellness as a contemporary buzzword can be defined as the belief “<a href="https://read.dukeupress.edu/jhppl/article/39/5/957/13664/What-Is-Wellness-Now">that each individual can and should strive to achieve a state of optimal functioning</a>.” </p>
<p>And this — echoing Kipling’s promise to better himself in the new year — also sounds very Victorian. </p>
<h2>Individual and national progress</h2>
<p>In 1859, Samuel Smiles, the Scottish journalist, biographer, social reformer and physician, published the authoritative text on 19th-century “character, conduct and perseverance” aptly <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/self-help-by-samuel-smiles">titled <em>Self-Help; with illustrations of character and conduct</em></a>. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="A painting of an elderly Victorian man with white hair." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502837/original/file-20230102-3468-asc1ft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502837/original/file-20230102-3468-asc1ft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=824&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502837/original/file-20230102-3468-asc1ft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=824&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502837/original/file-20230102-3468-asc1ft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=824&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502837/original/file-20230102-3468-asc1ft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1035&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502837/original/file-20230102-3468-asc1ft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1035&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502837/original/file-20230102-3468-asc1ft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1035&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An 1877 portrait of Samuel Smiles by George Reid.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(National Portrait Gallery collection/Wikimedia)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This was at the height of mid-Victorian hubris, and amid a year of epoch-defining ideas (Charles Darwin’s <em>On the Origin of Species</em> and John Stuart Mill’s <em>On Liberty</em> both entered the scene). </p>
<p>By the time Smiles (yes, that is his real name) died in 1904, <em>Self-Help</em> had sold over <a href="https://shepheardwalwyn.com/product/the-spirit-of-self-help">a quarter of a million copies in Britain alone and was an international hit</a>. </p>
<p>Smiles may now be less well known than some of his contemporaries, but his thesis on “<a href="https://www.google.ca/books/edition/Self_help/_eUUAAAAQAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=socrates&pg=PR13&printsec=frontcover">morals and manners</a>” and belief that “<a href="https://www.google.ca/books/edition/Self_help/_eUUAAAAQAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=samuel%20smiles%20self%20help&pg=PR3&printsec=frontcover">national progress was the sum of individual industry, energy and uprightness, as national decay is of individual idleness, selfishness and vice</a>” shaped the stalwart Victorian work ethic. </p>
<p>This made self-help, as historian <a href="https://www.historytoday.com/archive/samuel-smiles-gospel-self-help">Asa Briggs describes</a>, one of the <a href="https://www.historytoday.com/archive/samuel-smiles-gospel-self-help">defining virtues</a> of the era. These same ideas also helped form the ideological backbone of the wellness industry today. </p>
<h2>Strict habits, hard work</h2>
<p>Over a century and a half after <em>Self-Help</em>, and a week before Christmas 2022, the <em>Toronto Star</em> served readers <a href="https://www.thestar.com/life/health_wellness/2022/12/18/oh-honey-here-you-go-nine-wellness-trends-to-help-you-kick-start-the-new-year.html?utm_source=share-bar&utm_medium=user&utm_campaign=user-share">“Nine wellness trends to help you kick-start the New Year</a>.” </p>
<p>Unlike <em>the Star’s</em> wellness list, there is nothing in Smiles on the benefits of “functional fungus.” </p>
<p>Instead, <em>Self-Help</em> consists largely of a series of case studies: bootstrap narratives of successful men through history (Milton, Newton, Napoleon) who apparently rose through the ranks with strict habits and hard work. </p>
<p>But how different, really, are Smiles’s motivations from our own aspirations for annual self-improvement? </p>
<h2>Converting idle pleasure into profit</h2>
<p>Smiles’s biographer <a href="https://shepheardwalwyn.com/product/the-spirit-of-self-help/">John Hunter</a> describes <em>Self-Help</em>’s “bite-size pieces, undemanding of readers’ time,” with its “quotability” a boon to publishers. These are similar to the easily <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media-network/media-network-blog/2013/aug/12/5-ways-listicle-changing-journalism">digestible “listicles”</a> that fill January lifestyle sections. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.thestar.com/life/health_wellness/2022/12/18/oh-honey-here-you-go-nine-wellness-trends-to-help-you-kick-start-the-new-year.html?utm_source=share-bar&utm_medium=user&utm_campaign=user-share">Personalized wellness plans</a> may, on surface, signal hedonism over Smiles-like austerity and productivity. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-resolve-to-be-thinner-and-fitter-this-year-wont-lead-to-salvation-107956">The resolve to be thinner and fitter this year won’t lead to salvation</a>
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</p>
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<p>But from <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/29/nyregion/napping-in-a-new-york-minute.html?smid=url-share">office nap pods</a>, to the rebranding of friendship as “<a href="https://www.thestar.com/life/health_wellness/2022/12/18/oh-honey-here-you-go-nine-wellness-trends-to-help-you-kick-start-the-new-year.html?utm_source=share-bar&utm_medium=user&utm_campaign=user-share">therapeutic socialization</a>,” we too have come to convert idle pleasures into future profit, just as holiday indulgence becomes fodder for a January cleanse.</p>
<h2>Quantifiable self-improvement</h2>
<p>While often entailing deprivation, resolutions imply the sort of quantifiable self-improvement that would meet Smiles’s approval. </p>
<p>Yet we tend to make — or at least are told to make — the same ones every year. <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-16/here-s-how-quickly-people-ditch-weight-loss-resolutions">Data shows</a> that gym memberships do indeed spike, only to fall again by February, until the cycle repeats the following year. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A ferris wheel seen behind people skating." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502831/original/file-20230102-14-vx9s13.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502831/original/file-20230102-14-vx9s13.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502831/original/file-20230102-14-vx9s13.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502831/original/file-20230102-14-vx9s13.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502831/original/file-20230102-14-vx9s13.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502831/original/file-20230102-14-vx9s13.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502831/original/file-20230102-14-vx9s13.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A wheel of perpetual seeking? People skate on the Old Port skating rink on New Year’s Day in Montréal, January 1, 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This could be evidence of what English professor <a href="https://journals.upress.ufl.edu/rhm/article/view/223">Colleen Derkatch terms the wellness industry’s “moving target</a>.” She notes how wellness discourse promotes seemingly opposed notions of restoration and enhancement. </p>
<p>This means people are perpetually seeking wellness — and often spending money trying to achieve it.</p>
<h2>Time for rest</h2>
<p>But the Victorians offer more than the origins of the wellness industry’s current capitalist trap. </p>
<p>While I certainly do not look to 19th-century Britain expecting a road map for a fulfilled life, or to mimic the many abominable views held by men <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/209518">like Kipling</a>, it’s worth noting that such writers can also provide models for unproductive fun that make the repetitive nature of resolutions a positive way to punctuate time.</p>
<p>In many years spent rereading the Victorians, I sometimes glimpse scraps of unproductive joy outside of the stereotypical narrative of hard work and discipline. </p>
<p>While never abandoning his belief that “<a href="https://www.google.ca/books/edition/The_Autobiography_of_Samuel_Smiles_LL_D/DKVaBKcujpoC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=samuel%20smiles%20autobiography&pg=PP2&printsec=frontcover">work plenty of work is necessary for my happiness and welfare</a>,” in Smiles’s autobiography he also allows time for rest, and even for useless recreation. </p>
<h2>Vows ‘lightly made’</h2>
<p>At one point, the book details how, recovering from a stroke, he replaces his reliance on work with amateur painting. </p>
<p>The artworks he produces “are not of much importance, but the execution of them was a great relief to me …[so] I went on cultivating idleness.” </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502834/original/file-20230102-12-vctfe9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C739%2C8086%2C4207&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man seen with his arms outstretched in a giant gold person-sized public sculptural installation of the numbers 2023." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502834/original/file-20230102-12-vctfe9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C739%2C8086%2C4207&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502834/original/file-20230102-12-vctfe9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502834/original/file-20230102-12-vctfe9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502834/original/file-20230102-12-vctfe9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502834/original/file-20230102-12-vctfe9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502834/original/file-20230102-12-vctfe9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502834/original/file-20230102-12-vctfe9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Is letting it all unravel part of the fun of resolutions?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Arnulfo Franco)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A commitment to unproductivity, perhaps, offers another way to approach resolutions. The lapsed exercise regimen or <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/dec/28/stop-worrying-about-everything-thing-ill-do-differently">abandoned writing project</a>, then, are not just marks of failure, or potential targets for wellness profiteers. They can also be signs of happily wasted time.</p>
<p>In the final lines of his new year’s poem, Kipling flips the resolution narrative, letting his goals unravel, as our annual pledges so often do: “<a href="https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poem/poems_resolutions.htm">I am resolved—that vows like these/ Though lightly made, are hard to keep.</a>” </p>
<h2>Playfully pointless</h2>
<p>Despite the cynicism, the language stays lighthearted. The form mimics a children’s rhyme — regular in meter, with each quatrain followed by a bouncy couplet. </p>
<p>The poem ends with a bout of numerical diversion: “One vow a year will see me through,” so “I’ll begin with Number Two.” By pulling readers back to reread the second stanza, Kipling loosens the attachment to linear self-improvement. </p>
<p>January takes its name from <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Janus-Roman-god">the two-faced Roman god Janus</a>. This has long been a season of looking backward as much as forward, and not just in search of lessons, or warnings or evidence of progress. </p>
<p>Turning to the past also places resolutions in the repetitive time zone of ritual: playfully pointless, and without expectation of future returns.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196981/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicole Dufoe does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The 1859 book ‘Self-Help’ by Scottish journalist and physician Samuel Smiles was written in bite-sized pieces reminiscent of today’s wellness and lifestyle New Year tips.Nicole Dufoe, PhD Candidate in Victorian Literature and English Instructor, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1734032022-01-10T13:36:59Z2022-01-10T13:36:59ZHow the Earth’s tilt creates short, cold January days<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439145/original/file-20220102-17-1b3kzl8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C6%2C4163%2C2765&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Sun rises in Midland, Michigan, shortly after 8a.m. on Jan. 13, 2017.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/Q6LNQ5">Christian Collins/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Above the equator, winter officially <a href="https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/learn-about/weather/seasons/winter/when-does-winter-start">begins in December</a>. But in many areas, January is when it really takes hold. Atmospheric scientist <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=B5TfCvMAAAAJ&hl=en">Deanna Hence</a> explains the weather and climate factors that combine to produce wintry conditions at the turn of the year.</em></p>
<h2>How does the Earth’s orbit influence our daylight and temperatures?</h2>
<p>As the Earth orbits the sun, it spins around an axis – picture a stick going through the Earth, from the North Pole to the South Pole. During the 24 hours that it takes for the Earth to rotate once around its axis, every point on its surface faces toward the Sun for part of the time and away from it for part of the time. This is what causes daily changes in sunlight and temperature. </p>
<p>There are two other important factors: First, the Earth is round, although it’s <a href="https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/earth-round.html">not a perfect sphere</a>. Second, its axis is tilted about 23.5 degrees relative to its path around the Sun. As a result, light falls directly on its equator but strikes the North and South poles at angles. </p>
<p>When one of the poles points more toward the Sun than the other pole, that half of the planet gets more sunlight than the other half, and it’s summer in that hemisphere. When that pole tilts away from the Sun, that half of the Earth gets less sunlight and it’s winter there.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/438275/original/file-20211217-23072-g37bxk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Graphic of Earth tilting on its axis, with Northern Hemisphere toward the sun." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/438275/original/file-20211217-23072-g37bxk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/438275/original/file-20211217-23072-g37bxk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438275/original/file-20211217-23072-g37bxk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438275/original/file-20211217-23072-g37bxk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438275/original/file-20211217-23072-g37bxk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438275/original/file-20211217-23072-g37bxk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438275/original/file-20211217-23072-g37bxk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Earth’s tilt as it orbits around the Sun puts that one part of the planet more directly exposed to the Sun’s rays.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/tilt-of-the-earths-axis-and-earths-season-royalty-free-illustration/695485360">iStock via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Seasonal changes are the most dramatic at the poles, where the changes in light are most extreme. During the summer, a pole receives 24 hours of sunlight and the Sun never sets. In the winter, the Sun never rises at all.</p>
<p>At the equator, which gets consistent direct sunlight, there’s very little change in day length or temperature year-round. People who live in high and middle latitudes, closer to the poles, can have very different ideas about seasons from those who live in the tropics.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WgHmqv_-UbQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">As the Earth orbits the Sun, sunlight strikes the surface at varying angles because of the planet’s tilt. This creates seasons.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>There’s an old saying, “As the days lengthen, the cold strengthens.” Why does it often get colder in January even though we’re gaining daylight?</h2>
<p>It depends on where you are in the world and where your air is coming from. </p>
<p>Earth’s surface constantly absorbs energy from the Sun and stores it as heat. It also emits heat back into space. Whether the surface is warming or cooling depends on the balance between how much solar radiation the planet is absorbing and how much it is radiating away. </p>
<p>But Earth’s surface isn’t uniform. Land typically heats up and cools off much faster than water. Water requires more energy to raise and lower its temperature, so it warms and cools more slowly. Because of this difference, water is a better heat reservoir than land – especially big bodies of water, like oceans. That’s why we tend to see bigger swings between warm and cold inland than in coastal areas.</p>
<p>The farther north you live, the longer it takes for the amount and intensity of daylight to start significantly increasing in midwinter, since your location is tilting away from the Sun. In the meantime, those areas that are getting little sunlight keep radiating heat out to space. As long as they receive less sunlight than the heat they emit, they will keep getting colder. This is especially true over land, which loses heat much more easily than water. </p>
<p>As the Earth rotates, air circulates around it in the atmosphere. If air moving into your area comes largely from places like the Arctic that don’t get much sun in winter, you may be on the receiving end of bitterly cold air for a long time. That happens in the Great Plains and Midwest when cold air swoops down from Canada.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1357784644524081154"}"></div></p>
<p>But if your air comes across a body of water that keeps a more even temperature through the year, these swings can be significantly evened out. Seattle is downwind from an ocean, which is why it is many degrees warmer than Boston in the winter even though it’s farther north than Boston.</p>
<h2>How quickly do we lose daylight before the solstice and gain it back afterward?</h2>
<p>This depends strongly on your location. The closer you are to one of the poles, the faster the rate of change in daylight is. That’s why Alaska can go from having hardly any daylight in the winter to hardly any darkness in the summer. </p>
<p>Even for a particular location, the change is not constant through the year. The rate of change in daylight is slowest at the solstices – December in winter, June in summer – and <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2019/09/11/why-losing-daylight-quickly-and-what-know-about-autumnal-equinox/ooZUrhowvIUpSgV1LfOUoO/story.html">fastest at the equinoxes</a>, in mid-March and mid-September. This change occurs as the area on Earth receiving direct sunlight swings from 23.5 N latitude – about as far north of the equator as Miami – to 23.5 S latitude, about as far south of the equator as Asunción, Paraguay. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FmCJqykN2J0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">This satellite view captures the four changes of seasons. On the equinoxes, March 20 and Sept. 20, the line between night and day is a straight north-south line, and the sun appears to sit directly above the equator. Earth’s axis is tilted away from the Sun at the December solstice and toward the Sun at the June solstice, spreading more and less light on each hemisphere. At the equinoxes, the tilt is at a right angle to the Sun and the light is spread evenly.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What’s happening on the opposite side of the planet right now?</h2>
<p>In terms of daylight, folks on the other side of the planet are seeing the exact opposite of what we’re seeing. Right now, they’re at the peak of their summer and are enjoying the largest amounts of daylight that they’re going to get for the year. I do research on <a href="https://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=296639&org=NSF&from=news">Argentinian hailstorms</a> and <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Deanna-Hence-2">Indian Ocean tropical cyclones</a>, and both of those warm-weather storm seasons are well into their peaks right now.</p>
<p>[<em>Over 140,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletters to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-140ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<p>But there’s a key difference: The Southern Hemisphere has a lot less land and a lot more water than the Northern Hemisphere. Thanks to the influence of the southern oceans, land masses in the Southern Hemisphere tend to have fewer very extreme temperatures than land in the Northern Hemisphere does.</p>
<p>So even though a spot on the <a href="https://www.geodatos.net/en/antipodes">opposite side of the planet from your location</a> may receive exactly as much sunlight now as your area does in summer, the weather there may be different from the summer conditions you are used to. But it still can be fun to imagine a warm summer breeze on the far side of the Earth – especially in a snowy January.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/173403/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Deanna Hence receives funding from NASA, the National Science Foundation, and the Illinois Campus Research Board.</span></em></p>The winter solstice is past, but bundle up – January is when winter really arrives in many parts of the Northern Hemisphere.Deanna Hence, Assistant Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/899882018-01-12T11:42:40Z2018-01-12T11:42:40Z‘Blue Monday’ is a hoax – but it could become the most depressing day of the year if you don’t watch out<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201657/original/file-20180111-101514-dgbvpz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Don't give up on dry January.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">VGstockstudio/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Over the past decade, hordes of innocent people have bought the idea that the third Monday of January is the most depressing day of the year – despite there being no scientific evidence to support it. While retailers, beauty salons, travel agents and many other commercial bodies have capitalised on the concept, <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2549098/blue-monday-2018-when-why-january-15/">originally conceived by a PR company</a>, mental health professionals have despaired. That’s because, to many people, the Monday blues is a reality. </p>
<p>This may in part be due to the power of <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/4609267?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">self-fulfilling prophecy</a>. When we hold some expectations about an event, people, or ourselves, we start behaving in a way that matches our expectations. For example, thinking it is the most depressing day of the year, we might start paying more attention to the negative events around us – the boss who doesn’t listen to our good advice, or the partner who isn’t doing enough around the house. </p>
<p>Suddenly, we become so focused on thinking about what is bad about our lives that we become more tired, decide not to go to the gym after work and soon realise that our prophecy of the most depressive day of the year came true.</p>
<p>Another reason as to why Blue Monday can be a bad day is because it is inherent to all human beings <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/record/1997-03612-004">to make sense of the randomness</a> of the world around us. We seek out patterns that do not exist, because “chances”, “randomness”, or “messiness of life” make us feel uncomfortable. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201653/original/file-20180111-101505-8q4tj6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201653/original/file-20180111-101505-8q4tj6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201653/original/file-20180111-101505-8q4tj6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201653/original/file-20180111-101505-8q4tj6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201653/original/file-20180111-101505-8q4tj6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201653/original/file-20180111-101505-8q4tj6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201653/original/file-20180111-101505-8q4tj6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tell me why I don’t like Mondays.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">oneinchpunch/Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We do this because we need to feel like we have control over our lives. When we control our lives, we believe there is some cause and effect – if I am a good person, good things will happen to me. If our lives are random, then our actions don’t matter, making us panic and feeling helpless. This is why we force our brain to see meaning where there is no meaning. </p>
<p>This includes <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=BHEABAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=post+traumatic+growth+tedeschi&ots=o4wMFd8AKo&sig=C4NcNbIrY5UQczJ75HySTwIeXbg#v=onepage&q=post%20traumatic%20growth%20tedeschi&f=false">experiencing traumas in life</a>. We sometimes make sense of difficult experiences by saying that it happened to us because we were meant to learn a lesson or realise who our real friends are.</p>
<p>For example, when we break up with someone after a few months of being in a toxic relationship, we conclude that we had to go through it to learn what a good relationship looks like – in other words, there was a meaning in our suffering. The truth is, we may have known about the good and bad relationship beforehand, but believing it to be true is easier for us to bear than saying that we have just wasted time with this person.</p>
<p>Similarly, we believe that it must be a blue Monday because we think we are somehow emotionally “in debt” after overindulging over Christmas – like we deserve a bad time. And suddenly we notice we are cold, miserable and close to three weeks into our challenging new year’s resolutions, which have tested our willpower to the limits. It’s easy to think we are doomed to have a depressing day.</p>
<p>While there is no scientific evidence of Blue Monday on the third Monday of January – or any other Monday in a year – research shows us that, unsurprisingly, our mood is <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17439760.2012.691980">significantly better on Fridays and over the weekend</a> in general. Even people who love their jobs may show a rise in mood during these days. This may be due to many reasons. Most of us do not get a full night of restful sleep every day of the week – so a lie-in at the weekend can help us feel refreshed and <a href="http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/136/Suppl_1/A20467">boost our mood</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201656/original/file-20180111-101502-xl3ktf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201656/original/file-20180111-101502-xl3ktf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201656/original/file-20180111-101502-xl3ktf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201656/original/file-20180111-101502-xl3ktf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201656/original/file-20180111-101502-xl3ktf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201656/original/file-20180111-101502-xl3ktf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201656/original/file-20180111-101502-xl3ktf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Being outdoors can boost your mood.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/happy-woman-sitting-on-pier-smiling-574423141?src=x3eP6ob_n71SNn0O4n789w-1-0">Ditty_about_summer/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>Also, when we’re off, we may be more likely to go out and play, <a href="https://internationaljournalofwellbeing.org/ijow/index.php/ijow/article/view/449">enjoy nature</a> and <a href="http://news.gallup.com/businessjournal/127043/friends-social-wellbeing.aspx">meet up with friends</a>, all of which are associated with higher levels of well-being. Finally, the weekend allows us some “me time” – space to be us and sometimes do nothing, as opposed to the other days when we keep ourselves occupied most of the time. </p>
<h2>Happy Monday</h2>
<p>Since Blue Monday is a hoax that may affect our thinking and emotions so much, let’s turn it into Happy Monday and reap the benefits. Instead of searching for all that is going badly on the day, be mindful of all the good things that happen around you – that woman who held the bus door to prevent it from closing, the old lady who smiled at you for no reason or the little boy who gave you a big hug. </p>
<p>You can also boost your mood further by eating good food, as keeping the body healthy will improve your state of mind. You could even create a new, healthy routine, such as taking the stairs instead of a lift – or getting up earlier to do 10 minutes of mindfulness meditation before going to work. Spending the evening with friends or family rather than just lounging on the sofa could also help.</p>
<p>So let’s actively make Blue Monday the happiest day of the year by <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17439760.2012.671345">savouring our morning coffee for a change</a>, reflecting on the three things <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2006-21079-029">we are grateful for</a> in our lives, or practising some acts of <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2010-00584-005">kindness for people around us</a>. Happy Monday to you all!</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89988/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jolanta Burke does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The human brain is ‘programmed’ to believe in Blue Monday. But here’s how to turn it into Happy Monday.Jolanta Burke, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, University of East LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/711102017-01-19T16:03:51Z2017-01-19T16:03:51Z‘Dry’ and ‘try’ January campaigns show moderate drinking is not just about units of alcohol<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153279/original/image-20170118-26573-5wge73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Our interpretations of moderate drinking have changed</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/82557193?size=huge_jpg">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Around this time of year, many people seek to reduce, reform or moderate their drinking habits. However, the idea of what is considered “safe”, “sensible” or “responsible” drinking varies significantly at different points in time and across <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-954X.12100/pdf">different countries</a>. Public health advice once recommended that male alcohol consumption should be limited to less than <a href="http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201012/cmselect/cmsctech/1536/1536.pdf">21 alcoholic units per week</a>, for example, but in 2015 this was <a href="https://www.drinkaware.co.uk/alcohol-facts/alcoholic-drinks-units/alcohol-limits-unit-guidelines/">reduced to 14</a>. Many drinking campaigns also seem to promote further different interpretations of moderate drinking. </p>
<p>January has become a battleground of competing ideas of what exactly moderation is. It’s hard to ignore high-profile campaigns such as <a href="http://www.alcoholconcern.org.uk/dry-january">Dry January</a>, <a href="http://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/Running-your-pub/Marketing/Are-you-ready-for-Try-January">Try-Janaury</a>, and <a href="http://www.tryanuary.co.uk/">Tryanuary</a> which each invite us to change our drinking habits. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.alcoholconcern.org.uk/dry-january">Dry January</a> was the first such campaign in Britain, and invites individuals to raise money and awareness for the charity, <a href="http://www.alcoholconcern.org.uk/">Alcohol Concern</a>, by not drinking alcohol throughout the month. As well as raising funds, the campaign is designed to reduce long-term alcohol consumption - a month without drinking will hopefully make you aware of the benefits of drinking less, such as losing weight or saving money. If you scroll through any number of <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23DryJanuary&src=tyah">#DryJanuary</a> tweets, you will discover that the month of abstinence is commonly framed as a chance to hit reset – a chance to undo the bad habits of the previous year and imagine yourself as a different, more moderate drinker. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2259350/Resolved-alcohol-January-It-harm-good.html">Some health professionals</a> fear that, for some at least, participating in “dry” January might encourage excessive drinking later in the year. Indulging in frequent binges which are punctuated with temporary abstinence is not advised. However,<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26690637">evidence suggesting</a> that Dry January may indeed be effective in reducing long-term consumption has reduced this opposition somewhat.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, the debate between these two positions stems from opposing ideas of moderation – permanent constraint versus periods of abstinence. </p>
<h2>If not dry, why not try</h2>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153444/original/image-20170119-26550-1n2i3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153444/original/image-20170119-26550-1n2i3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153444/original/image-20170119-26550-1n2i3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153444/original/image-20170119-26550-1n2i3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153444/original/image-20170119-26550-1n2i3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153444/original/image-20170119-26550-1n2i3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153444/original/image-20170119-26550-1n2i3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">‘Try’ something new - support your independent breweries.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/london-sep-02-interior-pub-drinking-97178051?src=h6dWQuGNc26CEVdDxB08PA-1-62">Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>“<a href="http://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/Running-your-pub/Marketing/Are-you-ready-for-Try-January">Try January</a>” on the other hand encourages consumers to make January a month of experimentation instead and asks licensed premises to offer new food and drinks – an attempt to take an otherwise “dreary month and transform it into something fun”. The “try” campaign is not anti-moderation, but encourages a different form of moderation. </p>
<p>Another, similar campaign named “<a href="http://www.tryanuary.co.uk/">Tryanaury</a>”, encourages consumers to support the UK’s resurgent independent breweries. Tryanuary does however insist that moderation is important and that “this isn’t about drinking more. It’s about trying something different”. This idea of moderation, then, is a matter of self-constraint and connoisseurship. It depicts the moderate drinker as being discerning and exploratory. Clearly, our sense of moderate drinking rests on more than just the quantity of drinks consumed.</p>
<h2>Righteous drinking</h2>
<p>In fact, <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-954X.12361/abstract">research</a> has found that many drinkers share this view and frame their drinking as more desirable than that of other people. In particular, real ale drinkers often defend their consumption habits on the grounds of their connoisseurship. They argue that they consume in a discerning way – paying respect and attention to <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07cx2cq">taste, experimentation and detailed knowledge of beer styles</a>. </p>
<p>Despite their obvious differences, the “dry” and “try” campaigns do have some things in common: they both use social media to allow both the initial commitment and ongoing efforts of the participants to be made public, and offer a sense of community and mutual encouragement - something that many of the more individualistic public health efforts to reduce alcohol consumption have not done. </p>
<p>The enormous variety of meanings attributed to moderate alcohol consumption means that conflicts between different notions of how we should and should not drink are played out annually at this time of year. The “dry” and “try” campaigns have thrived on the fact that January has become a jumble of competing messages about resolutions. Individuals are subjected to differing advice, expertise and guidance - so moderation isn’t simply defined by the unit limits that are expressed in public health advice. Drinking is too <a href="https://theconversation.com/alcohol-guidelines-ignore-how-people-drink-thats-why-theyre-not-heeded-45675">socially and culturally complex</a> for “moderate drinking” to have a single, all-encompassing definition.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71110/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Henry Yeomans has received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council, the British Academy and the Leverhulme Trust.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas Thurnell-Read does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The rise of annual January drinking campaigns. shows that our ideas of moderate drinking aren’t solely based public health guidlelines.Henry Yeomans, Lecturer in Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of LeedsThomas Thurnell-Read, Lecturer in Cultural Sociology, Loughborough UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/702982017-01-09T11:38:40Z2017-01-09T11:38:40ZHeart attacks are more common in January – here’s why<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152089/original/image-20170109-23491-1kf4c24.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/pic-450555568/stock-photo-paramedic-using-an-external-defibrillator-during-cardiopulmonary-resuscitation-in-hospital.html?src=gZrn-EXjYfNJ77X6tfDCoA-1-11">wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Cardiovascular deaths around the world, such as heart attacks and strokes, peak in January. Why this is the case has baffled scientists for some time, but new evidence is starting to unravel the mystery.</p>
<p>Scientists initially thought it had something to do with the cold, but this proved to be a false start. Researchers at the University of Southern California examined deaths from heart attacks between 1985 and 1996 in Los Angeles, a city with a mild winter and a daily minimum temperature that is relatively constant throughout the year. They found a <a href="http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/100/15/1630">seasonal variation in heart attacks</a>, with a third more deaths occurring in January. </p>
<p>The researchers also <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22381159">analysed 1.7m death certificates</a> (2005 to 2008) from seven US locations that ranged from hot to cold. Again they found a similar pattern of cardiac mortality including heart attacks in these different locations with a peak in January. These results chime with other studies conducted <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3840603/">across the globe</a>, including the <a href="http://heart.bmj.com/content/69/5/385">UK</a>, which uncovered a winter peak in deaths from cardiovascular disease.</p>
<h2>Air pollution</h2>
<p>Researchers have also considered air pollution, and here they seem to be on firmer ground. There is a <a href="http://urbanemissions.blogspot.co.uk/2016_08_01_archive.html">seasonal rhythm to air pollution</a>. Nitrogen dioxide levels – a key pollutant in causing premature deaths in Britain, for example, are at their highest in January in the large cities. Oxford Street in London is reported to be the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37131138">most polluted street</a> in the world for nitrogen dioxide. In fact, London is so polluted that in just the first seven days of 2015 and 2016, London already <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/london-breaches-air-pollution-limit-for-the-whole-of-2016-in-just-over-seven-days-a6811616.html">breached its legal limit</a> on air pollution for the whole of that year.</p>
<p>Even short-term exposure to pollutants, from diesel and petrol fumes, is associated with <a href="http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/103/23/2810?ijkey=c563c5ea16ad6e3517a0e9a62eed563e3900e497&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha">increased deaths from heart attacks</a> and <a href="http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/1108717">strokes</a>. Pollutants enter the bloodstream, via the lungs, where they initiate an inflammatory response. This can lead to blood clots in the arteries – a risk factor for heart attacks and strokes. </p>
<h2>Flu</h2>
<p>Another important trigger for heart attacks is infection. Infections are high during winter and there is a <a href="http://heart.bmj.com/content/early/2016/09/29/heartjnl-2016-309983.full">known link</a> between the flu virus and cardiovascular disease. The flu virus affects inflammatory and blood-clotting pathways, which can cause fatty deposits on the artery wall (plaque) to break loose, leading to coronary artery blockage – the main cause of heart attacks. </p>
<p>The flu vaccine is associated with reduced hospitalisation and death in <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21172383">heart attacks</a> and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26296496">stroke</a>. A five-year US$21m <a href="http://news.wisc.edu/vaccine-trial-aims-to-make-flu-season-safer-for-heart-patients/">clinical trial</a> began this year to test the effect of a high-dose flu vaccine (four-times the normal dose) to combat cardiac deaths.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152081/original/image-20170109-23496-xanlij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152081/original/image-20170109-23496-xanlij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152081/original/image-20170109-23496-xanlij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152081/original/image-20170109-23496-xanlij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152081/original/image-20170109-23496-xanlij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152081/original/image-20170109-23496-xanlij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152081/original/image-20170109-23496-xanlij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Flu vaccination is associated with fewer deaths from cardiovascular disease.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/251776987?src=24r9sjrpcChNkQcMZJlXig-1-69&id=251776987&size=medium_jpg">Peerayot/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
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<p>Other risk factors that are also seasonal include <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24879630">high cholesterol</a>, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24879630">high blood pressure</a> and low vitamin D levels. <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23149428">Vitamin D deficiency</a> is associated with increased incidence and risk of heart attacks. Combine these with the previously mentioned risk factors for coronary death (pollution and flu), and you have a recipe for disaster. </p>
<h2>Beware January mornings</h2>
<p>It turns out these circulating risk factors not only have seasonal variations, but daily ones too. Research shows that they are at <a href="http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/115/8/996">high levels in the morning</a> and low in the evening. So, not only are we more susceptible to heart attacks in January but there is also a higher incidence of <a href="http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/79/4/733.long">heart attacks between 6am and noon</a>.</p>
<p>Almost every cell in our body has a group of interacting genes that act as a clock. These “circadian clocks” help to regulate biological processes, including clotting and inflammation. They ensure that our bodies follow a 24-hour rhythm and adapt to changes in our environment. Disruption of these internal timing mechanisms can lead to <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/113/10/E1402?trendmd-shared=0">cardiac disorders</a>. Indeed, <a href="http://openheart.bmj.com/content/1/1/e000019.abstract">a study</a> showed that the Monday after the clocks go forward by one hour (daylight savings) there is a 24% increase in the numbers of heart attacks compared with any other Mondays of the year. </p>
<p>Lack of sleep can also increase the risk of <a href="http://eurheartj.oxfordjournals.org/content/32/12/1484">strokes and heart attacks</a>. Disrupting the circadian rhythms and sleep in the days after a heart attack can also <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26144940">hinder recovery</a>.</p>
<p>So what do daily biological rhythms have to do with cardiovascular deaths in winter? Researchers at the JDRF/Wellcome Trust Diabetes and Inflammation Laboratory examined blood and fat-tissue samples from 16,000 people living in the UK, US, Iceland, Australia and The Gambia. They found almost a quarter of all our genes differ in activity according to the time of year, with some more active in winter than summer. <a href="http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms8000">The study</a> revealed that numerous genes involved in regulating our immune system are seasonal. In other words, they express (make) proteins at different rates, depending on the season. One of these genes is ARNTL, an important circadian-clock gene that suppresses inflammation. ARNTL was found to be least active in January, which may contribute to the higher levels of inflammation. </p>
<p>What all this research is showing us is that January presents a “chronorisk” – where several risk factors, when occurring in the same time period, can be lethal. In the case of coronary deaths, the chronorisk is January. So in addition to wearing a thicker coat in January, make sure you get some decent hours of sleep, top up your vitamin D and stay away from heavy traffic and busy high streets; an easy task then during the busiest period of the year.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70298/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nelson Chong does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A perfect storm of risk factors makes January the deadliest month for cardiovascular disease.Nelson Chong, Senior Lecturer, Department of Life Sciences, University of WestminsterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.