The parties are over, the bowl games are finished, the presents long-since exchanged. It's 136 days until the next big holiday that most everyone has off from work (Memorial Day). The sun sets at 5:20, it's cold when you crawl out of bed in the morning (and will be for at least two more months) and any day now the letter carrier will arrive with last month's Visa bill.

Feeling a little blue, are you?

It's not surprising, say those who keep tabs on our mental well-being. And you aren't alone. What you're experiencing is something loosely known as the January blues.

"It's almost like running a marathon," says Rebecca Kiki Weingarten, a New York-based life coach, of the letdown that follows the two-month, end-of-year holiday blitz. "Boom! It's over and you're exhausted."

And bummed. For a number of reasons.

For one, there's all that time you've just spent with "loved ones."

"You're off work, you're spending a lot of time together," says Raleigh divorce lawyer Lee Rosen. "That's not a good thing for a troubled relationship.

"Think about it," he says. "How many minutes a day do you actually engage in a relationship with your spouse? Then you have five days of having to talk to one another."

Not surprisingly, January is a big month for Rosen's firm. (Business also tends to pick up after ice storms and hurricanes, other events that force "togetherness.")

"I've been in this business 20 years," says Rosen, "and I've seen this every year."

Spending the holidays with family you haven't seen in a while can trigger another reaction.

"It can be a reminder that you're still in the same place you were a year ago," says Weingarten, who helps stuck people get unstuck. "It's like a high school reunion: Year after year you're wondering 'What will they think? What will they say?' " Come January, you've got lots of time to mentally replay those reactions.

Another holiday situation could exacerbate that feeling of inadequacy: the keeping-up-with-what-the- Joneses-gave-each-other-for-Christmas syndrome.

"This friend was able to give his wife this, or take his family on this kind of vacation," says Weingarten, leaving you to question the bunny slippers you gave your spouse. "Of course, you don't know the real story behind the gift, but it can still make you feel insecure."

The bills come due

The "real story" could well be another thing that troubles a lot of us come January: the holiday spending hangover. According to a survey released last week by Coinstar, the biggest reason cited for the January blues is the dreaded arrival of the credit card statement.

"Americans are nearly twice as likely to feel depressed when their bills come in than when it's time to head back to work," the Coinstar National Currency Poll found.

And there are those New Year's resolutions. The mere idea of impending change can make us anxious.

"Change is very difficult for most people," says psychologist Ronald Nathan, who once taught at UNC-Chapel Hill and now practices in Albany, N.Y. "The only people who enjoy change are babies with a full diaper."

Worse than change, though, is failure. Nathan cites a recent survey that showed that 77 percent of people who make New Year's resolutions break them within the first week. Thus, he says, we're burdened with feelings of failure and lowered self-esteem.

(Actually, Nathan says, this should be a good thing. "Each time we try to change [and fail] it increases our odds to succeed because we know what not to do next time.")

Feeling SAD

Certain populations appear more susceptible to the January blues.

Folks who suffer from seasonal affective disorder -- a type of winter depression caused by a dearth of daylight -- have been on the rebound since Dec. 22 when the days began getting microscopically longer, but they still face another couple of months of extended darkness.

College students, too.

"A lot of students suffer a January letdown," says Dr. Robert Bashford, a psychiatrist with UNC Hospitals. "They've gone home, had a great time. They haven't had to stick with the program. Then they come back to school, and they really hit the wall."

Michael Smith teaches mass communication at Campbell University in sunny Buies Creek. But several years ago he taught in "gloomy" -- at least in the winter -- southern Indiana, at Taylor University. The January blues didn't go unnoticed there.

"For that reason, the administrators encouraged January-term trips to sunny ports where students often conducted short-term missions projects," Smith reports via e-mail.

Smith, apparently, was immune to the January blues.

"For the four years I taught there, we did the opposite and took students to Washington, D.C.," says Smith.

"In 12-passenger vans, no less."