Suicide among middle-aged Japanese men go up on Monday mornings, says study

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A research study conducted by Waseda University and Osaka University showed that suicides among middle-aged Japanese men tend to surge on Monday mornings.

The study called the psychological state as “blue Monday,” wherein people become depressed as Monday looms, according to The Japan Times on Nov. 6.

The researchers analyzed data on over 870,000 Japanese adults who committed suicide between the years 1974 and 2014. They discovered that days of the week and times of day when people died by suicide differed when it came to age and sex. It is the first study of its kind to find certain times of day with a number of suicides

When men aged 40 to 65 are concerned, it was found that they committed suicide between the hours of 4 a.m. and 7:59 a.m. This hit a peak in 1995 when Japan’s economy was reportedly deteriorating, up until 2014.

Moreover, the study found that the number of suicides from the men’s age group of 40 to 65 occurred during the daytime more than at night. Suicides committed on Mondays were also 1.55 times as high as compared to lives taken on Saturdays. Such finding was also seen among men aged 20 to 39.

The men reportedly committed suicide as they were about to leave for work in the morning. The research also showed that hanging and gas poisoning were the most cited causes of death.

Japan has one of the highest suicide rates in the world. The country, as per a white paper report via The Japan Times last May 2017, was considered as the second worst among eight major industrialized nations and sixth highest in the world when it came to suicide.

The Cabinet-approved report also showed that although suicides declined in 2016 with a number of 21,897, it was still the main cause of death among the Japanese belonging in five age groups. Cody Cepeda/JB

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