Today, January 15, is Blue Monday and this day is marked as the most depressing day of the year.

Brad Unger is the Program Director for Recovery of Hope with Eden Health Care Services in Steinbach. Unger says this time of year can be a low point for people as the Christmas and New Year holidays have ended, some are grieving a loss, there is less sunlight, and the cold weather keeps us inside more often.

"If you're feeling low, it's better to face it than to just ignore it. We often give ourselves a message of, just gotta, sort of, keep it together or pull up our bootstraps. So, I think it's really important for us to give ourselves permission to really tune into ourselves. There are some really good resources around self-care and self-compassion."

Unger says exercises towards positivity at this time of year may include tuning into how we're feeling, spending time outdoors, connecting with others, and making sure we're not so busy we're running on empty.

"I can share personally," notes Unger. "When I do some mindfulness or deep breathing exercises I can really tune into feeling some anxiety or anxiousness. It's often, for me, centered in my stomach. So, I'm kind of trying to listen to that. I'll often because I'm not a great practitioner of this, I'll have trouble even slowing my mind down and I get a lot of racing thoughts. When my mind is racing or I'm having trouble slowing down, those are some of the signals to me that I really need to pay attention and be a little more intentional with slowing that down."

He adds another reason for people feeling low is the social media culture we're currently living in and how it affects our perception of others reality.

"We're always showing our highlights, we're showing our most photogenic moments of our life. There's this idea that most people are having all these amazing, great moments and, of course, we're living our own lives that have just as many, if not more, low moments than high moments. So, I think, for all of us, the encouragement is to find those ways to be honest. It's great to share highlights, but it's actually great to mix in real life with its highs and lows."

EdenEast in Steinbach has an open house to help people make Blue Monday anything but blue.