Suicide and the Weather

Albert Camus, the French humanist, wrote, “there is only one true philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.” Pliny the Elder had said earlier, “admit the miseries of our life on earth, suicide is God’s best gift to man.”

These are the words of egomaniacs - or rather, egomaniacs caught up in a state of depression.

Is there truth to these words? A recent study proved the obvious (to me and anyone else who scientifically studies the brain), that suicide and hot weather are linked:

A hot planet in 2050 could spark tens of thousands of more suicides, a new study suggests.

Hot Weather amd Suicide

Thermodynamics, a law that governs all matter in the universe, means 'heat loss'. As energy enters a system, unless it is a crystal, the energy is going to leave it after some interval of time. The measure of this loss of energy is termed "entropy".

Heat goes up, and the molecules which make up your cells vibrate faster - which causes them to lose heat faster, which causes the body to speed up its processes, and so, reduce the functional wherewithal of your biodynamical system. An example: under heat duress, the solitary nucleus of the lower brain stem changes its behavior so that parts of the brain like the amygdala become more reactive to events in the environment. Why does this connection exist - between the solitary nucleus and the central amygdaloid nucleus? It makes much sense if you simply contemplate the homeodynamic basis of the body. Whether the perturbation be microbial, heat, cold, or social, your body has a 'homeostatic range' which it wants to stay within. If heat goes up, all the other parameters which your body controls adjust with that change. So, with regard to the brain and the regulation of feeling states, when heat goes up, the central-control system of the solitary nucleus influences a suite of other brain-sites which ultimately results in reduced blood flow to cortical regions furthest out from the brainstem - which are also the most recently evolved structures.

Heat thus reduces forebrain 'control' on affective processes. If the humidity and heat is low, humidity 15%, a comfortable 25 degrees, lets say - the human body is hardly disturbed. Crank the humidity up to 60-70 %, and the heat to 30, and the body begins to operate at a shortfall, as it were, relative to the former conditions. The former conditions provide the sort of 'external support' to mediate optimate usage of the forebrain. Conversely, 30 degree weather with a high humidex is going to lead to high dehydration, and thus, reduces system functioning.

Regular eating and hydration can counter these effects, of course. And staying away from coffee, alcohol or anything else that can dehydrate you is essential if you want full control of your brain-mind.

In the case of microbes, the energy balance between brain and body tilts to the latter, with the immune sytem increasing its output, and correspondingly, the mind feeling tired and apathetic. Its as if a perfect sphere were dented; the dent goes inward, into the body, and its not until the infection is dealt with that the dent is fixed and the system becomes 'symmetrical' again. In the case of the mind - or social stress - the relationship is inverted; stress in the mind can depress immune function.

Notice what I am writing: your feeling states are oftentimes controlled by impersonal ecological factors. Ecological factors are transitory. Feelings, too, are transitory. Suicide during hot weather seems incredibly bizarre, from a logical perspective, because the greatest constraint, or control, on the individuals feeling, is the weather. Yet it is not this that is emphasized by the person who suffers this way, but whatever it is in their life that is haunting them.

Think for a moment what a public campaign that emphasizes this difference could do for people. Our mind-brain functions according to energy input. If I never hear people talking about the significance of the impact of weather on my emotional functioning - if these connections are never made out to you - why would you be compelled to form that sort of thought? Not everything becomes interesting to us, but only those things, as Stuart Kauffman would describe it, within your semiotic "adjacent possible".

Still, I am sure most people would find this idea helpful when their distraught. It gives you some sort of existential breathing room; you can 'hold it out', let the stressful pressure of the weather pass, before you do something that canot be undone.

This 'relational' logic applies as much to microbes or social relationships, insomuch as "a certain amount" of microbes and negative socioaffective meaning can produce certain deleterious consequences in our functioning.

Another important parameter on 'feeling' is sleep and food, but this thread is focused moreso on the relationship between heat and feeling, and the incredible fact that some people will do things at certain times without realizing how much wiggle-room they have with their feelings.

Knowledge is power - and in situations such these, the more you know about what you need to feel 'right', the more power you have over the qaulity of your existence. The only way to change this situation is to recognize the value of normalizing this sort of relational logic in conversations. Feelings are emergent; they depend upon certain interactions for them to emerge. In humans, oftentimes it takes psychotherapy for a person to realize what seems obvious right after its known: that the relationships one has developed are the source of the negative states they experience.

Such relations go to the most basic and banal. Eating, getting hydrated, heat, humidity, microbes. All sorts of impersonal things affect our feelings. It makes sense to integrate this knowledge if we hope to improve our relationships with one another, as well with our selves.

The Albert Camus quote is about another matter - developmental trauma - and how ignoring that fact about yourself leads you to ignore the 'special nature of the assertion being made. In other words, non-traumatized humans aren't struggling with the question Camus does. They are busy enjoying their living - not being weighed down by the unresolved force of traumatological feelings.

This is the most toxic attitude humans can have. When they ignore the previous events that lead up to their assertion - as if their 'feelings' were expressing reality as a general truth, as opposed to their truth, which, of course, happens within a more fundamental ideal truth, defined as the normal, and natural, teleodynamic tendencies of the human system.

a reply to: Astrocyte

I will say...on my ambulance on full moons...we do have an increase of calls for suicides and attempted suicides.

To us EMT's? We understand our bodies have a huge percentage of water... and just like the ocean tides being pulled in and out... phases of the moon positively effects moods and the brain....

a reply to: mysterioustranger


They probably do.

Being 'sensitive' is an effect that the mind sciences are only beginning to appreciate.

It seems as if having a 'very sensitive' mental constitution is generally a consequence of trauma. But is trauma necessary to increase sensitivity to the presence of meaningful signals? Of course not.

Yet, science needs to pay attention to these two differences - or three differences. Some people are raised in compassionate contexts that supports a robust awareness of 'sensitive' matters. Other people are made sensitive by trauma, and through a life of toiling to get control over their mental life, usually through spirituality. Then there are 'dissociative' types. People with no 'spiritual inkling' who seem unaware of all sorts of effects upon them. The moon does not make them sensitive.

I'm sure there's a reason for these differences. In my mind, the moon can be used to augment a state of emotional feeling - and this is a pretty common understanding, of course, among mystics and occultists.

a reply to: mysterioustranger

anecdotal, but I've worked call centers that deal with massive volume of calls.


we could always tell full moon days like clockworker, the common question after a bad day of crappy customer calls was "is it a full moon?" sure enough usually was.

Hint:
"As above , so below"

Just as the mind-brain bears the mental burden of existence,
so too the feet literally bear the burden of our physical
existence.

Let's start at the bottom , "where the rubber meets the road".
I am here to emphatically proclaim a great truth:
Happy feet make a happy person!

Are you feeling hot, tired, and irritable?
Then take off your shoes!

Feel like ending it all?
Wait! There's hope! Get a pair of sandals!
and get rid of those hot clammy torture devices
that you call shoes.

Ever hear someone say that somebody's "walk through
life" has been hard?

Ever hear someone use the phrase: People from all walks
of life"?

The feet bear the physical burden of "the walk"

Making your feet happy is a great start.

a reply to: mysterioustranger

Teachers in schools also know when it is a full moon, without looking at a chart. The behavior of children tells us!

a reply to: Astrocyte

This was a fascinating read. Thank you!

a reply to: Astrocyte

I was led to believe that suicide rates increase the further you go from the equator.
And I also know that people get depressed when there is not enough sun light...........there are lights available called 'SAD lights'.........'SAD' stands for 'seasonal affective disorder'.

SAD is sometimes known as "winter depression" because the symptoms are more apparent and tend to be more severe during the winter.

www.nhs.uk...

a reply to: Astrocyte

It is well known that weather affects mood, specifically depression (Seasonal Affective Disorder aka SAD). In winter, especially when there is a low amount of UV radioation hitting skin to make viatamin D. You get more depressed people, and that leads to more depression.

Similarly I've seen the moon affect people (yep Lunatics), though I've also crunched the numbers (during my honors stats project) and its not a really statistically significant effect. But I've seen people believe that the moon, or storms, etc makes them depressed or anxious, and I sadly have seen people try (and succeed) at killing themselves.

It comes down to the fact, we as humans know more about the way the heart works than the brain.

originally posted by: Itisnowagain
a reply to: Astrocyte

I was led to believe that suicide rates increase the further you go from the equator.
And I also know that people get depressed when there is not enough sun light...........there are lights available called 'SAD lights'.........'SAD' stands for 'seasonal affective disorder'.

SAD is sometimes known as "winter depression" because the symptoms are more apparent and tend to be more severe during the winter.

www.nhs.uk...

I stayed up close to the Arctic circle in Trondheim, Norway. The nights there would be long, much the same as in Scotland. It would get dark at 4pm and wouldn't get light again until 9am. That's around 16 hours of darkness. Sweden and Norway would have higher suicide rates back then. If you had a job it wasn't so bad, but when unemployed it would be really depressing.

But Summers were wonderful. There wouldn't be any night-time, just a twilight. In Norway people would be walking dogs and painting their homes at 4am.

whoever puts you in a dark pit, has the power to get you out. ask asistance.

Grab the demons that haunt beat them up and then put them to work for you.
No one gets a free ride!

Grab the demons that haunt beat them up and then put them to work for you.
No one gets a free ride!