A Connection Between Sunlight and Suicide
May 8, 2009 by Liz Lewis
Filed under Death, Depression, Health
I’m sure you’ve heard of the winter blues, or seasonal affective disorder, where people are unable to function due to lack of sunlight. In fact, it’s long been thought that there is an increase in the number of suicides in late autumn and early winter months due to this lack of sunlight and increased hours of darkness.
But now a new study by Swedish researchers indicates that, in some places in the world, too much sunlight can also be a catalyst for an increased number of people committing suicide.
The researchers studied the suicide rates of people living in Greenland, a country that’s so far north it never sees the sun setting in the summer months. Looking at the suicides between 1968 and 2002, the researchers found that 82% of them occurred during the summer months.
According to the researchers, this increased summer suicide rate is probably due to the fact that prolonged daylight causes not only insomnia but also an imbalance in serotinin (the brain chemical linked to mood) both of which make some people more vulnerable to depression and suicide.
