The Sunlight is Making Me Paranoid - Near Suicidal

Elefant had this song a few years back. Little did they know, paranoia was the least of their concerns.

Too much sunlight in places like Greenland where long summer days often cause insomnia appears more likely to drive a person to suicide, Swedish researchers said Friday.

Despite a belief that suicides tend to rise in late autumn and early winter months because of darkness, the new findings suggest that places where constant sunlight in summer seasons is a fact of life may be just as dangerous.

The Swedish team studied the seasonal variation of suicides in all of Greenland from 1968 to 2002 and found a cluster of suicides in the summer months.

This seasonal effect was especially pronounced in the north of the country -- an area where the sun doesn't set between the end of April and the end of August.

"We found that suicides were almost exclusively violent and increased during periods of constant day," Bjorksten said in a statement.

"In the north of the country, 82 percent of the suicides occurred during the daylight months."

Most of the suicides involved young men and were violent -- such as shooting, hanging and jumping from high places. These kinds of deaths accounted for nearly all, about 95 percent, of the suicides.

The article goes on to say a lack of seratonin and the combination of no sleep, drives people to kill themselves. Note to self, sleep more and order curtains. And people wonder why I hate the outdoors.

source