Poor winter has quite a spoilt and abominable rep for being the saddest season of the year. Blacklisted for making people feel the blues and depressed. Little light and grey-ishness outside kills the mood for some. Thus the SAD (seasonal effective disorder) syndrome hits many and becomes quite common during the icy months. And this is the reason why many end up linking the high number of suicides to the winter months.
Though we must reveal that this belief is nothing but a myth!
Let’s try to understand a little about the epidemiology of suicides:
A report by the World Health Organization states that nearly a million people take their lives every year. On an average, almost 3000 people commit suicide every day out of which 287,000 die every year in China. In United States, suicide rates are the lowest during the winter months and highest during the summer and spring. Reason being when the suicide comes to mind, pictures of bright sunshine and blue skies don’t come to mind. But constant sunlight harms our circadian rhythm, which helps us sleep at night and stay awake during the day. Since this gets process disrupted in very high temperatures, the body tends to become weaker and more tired hence people are more prone to taking their own lives. In India 250,000 farmers have died in the last fifteen years due to their crops having done poorly in the given weather. Every year they wait for the harsh summer sun to retreat soon and the rains to come in well and early. Sporadic rain and temperatures, as high as 45⁰C, ends their morale and thus their life.
Thus the world of science does not attribute suicides to weather but to the human condition.
