The third Monday of January is known as “Blue Monday.”

It's when a number of factors apparently converge, from debt levels to weather conditions, and reportedly make this the most depressing day of the year.

It's hard to believe there is any scientific truth to this being mathematically the bluest day of the year.

But we all get a touch of the winter blahs from time to time and help could be just a flick of the switch away.

It's a sound Denis Deschenes dreams about, as he tees up his ball at a test range in Golftown.

“I thought I would come in and shoot balls,” he says, as he takes a perfect swing, on fake turf, into a fake fairway.  But he is suffering from the real winter blues.

“It’s almost the middle of winter,” he says, “the days are short and nights are still long.”

For Damyanti Patel, it is simply too much.  She’s headed to India for three weeks.

“All the time, we see the snow, snow, snow,” she says, as she hauls her luggage through the airport, “outside the house and on the road and everywhere. I feel it's much too cold here.”

For those who can afford it, they are leaving the cold and Blue Monday behind.  Kyle Joy is headed south to Fort Lauderdale and then a cruise.

“I'm definitely going to make summer come around today,” he says with a grin.

But if you don't have the $2000 you will need to go to the sun, for $200 you can bring the sun to you.

Pharmacies like Pharmacie Brisson on Dalhousie sell what is called a bright light therapy. It provides intense doses of light that mimic daylight and can help with something called Seasonal Affective Disorder or simply with the winter blahs.

“They stimulate the brain,” says pharmacy owner Jean Brisson, “it's trying to imitate natural sunlight.  The light has to stimulate the brain by going through your eyes so basically, you have to have it in your field of vision for half hour a day and it gives you the stimulation like going for half hour walk in sunshine.”

In fact, some libraries in Edmonton and Winnipeg have installed the light therapy lamps.  Ottawa has no plans to purchase any here.

Seasonal affective disorder is pretty rare; a condition present only in the winter months lasting more than two weeks.  Ottawa psychologist Dr. Eva Fisher says it’s a recent diagnosis that has now become part of major depressive disorder. 

“The person has to have had the symptoms (being sad, not feeling well, feeling like you don't want to go to work, you can't sleep or want to sleep all the time) only in the winter months,” explains Dr. Fisher.

Blue Monday, on the other hand, is a term coined by a British travel agency and perpetuated by the media.  Dr. Fisher says it is really only an issue if you are blue every Monday.

“When you feel okay on Friday and look forward to the weekend,” says Dr. Fisher, “and then Sunday night, you feel yourself sinking and say, “I have to go to work tomorrow,” that's a red flag that something is going on at work.”

Back at Golftown Denis Deschenes is still working on his swing,

“I just keep dreaming about playing golf,” he says, as he connects with the ball and sends it flying into the imaginary fairway.

There is actually some weird calculation to figure out Blue Monday based on debt level, time since Christmas, weather conditions.  Using a similar formula, there is a happiest day as well calculated to be between June 21 and 24th.