LIFESTYLE OUT OF MY MIND
WHY IS MAY THE
Highest Month for Suicides? BY PHILIP CHARD
T
he month of May is spring’s overture when nature’s rebirth manifests in color, youth and vigor. Flowers reach full bloom. Trees leaf out. The soil, revitalized by winter’s slumber, pushes shoots of green toward the Sun. Our fellow animals conduct their daily tasks with renewed vigor, while the birds sing their lilting melodies. This riot of sensory delights is the coming out party for new life. And it heralds the peak season for suicides. Contrary to conventional wisdom suggesting the dark, cold winter pushes many to a new emotional low, more people take their lives in spring than any other season, and May is often the worst month in this regard. This paradoxical phenomenon is global. Spring in the southern hemisphere exhibits
the same troubling trend. In the United States and many other northern regions, December, when daylight tanks, usually records the fewest suicides, and January, in turn, often tallies more deaths overall than any other month of the year. But suicides do not follow suit. What gives? Theories abound, but no definitive, evidence-based answer has emerged. Some neuroscientists propose that seasonal fluctuations in brain chemistry are to blame. Increased exposure to sunlight activates the release of more serotonin, a feel-good neurochemical that those with Seasonal Affective Disorder strive to ramp up during winter by using light boxes exuding solar rays. Folks who suffer suicidal thoughts through the winter may be “activated” by this bump in serotonin,
becoming more aggressive and impulsive. This, in turn, may spur them to act on their self-destructive ruminations rather than just endure them. The strongest evidence supporting this theory comes from a Canadian study showing that suicides occurring during the spring are more violent and, therefore, lethal than those attempted in the winter. At least by correlation, this bolsters the link between increased serotonin and greater aggression; in this instance, aggression toward one’s self.
CONTRAST EFFECT Alternatively, viewing the spring surge in suicides through a psychological lens offers another explanation, albeit, like the neurochemical hypothesis, an unproven one. A former client I’ll call Bill (not his real name) lent anecdotal credence to
