Title: Can Your Birthday Predict Your Mental Health? | Psychology Today
Headings: Can Your Birthday Predict Your Mental Health?
Ralph Ryback M.D.
Can Your Birthday Predict Your Mental Health?
Research reveals some unnerving links, and suggests some explanations.

Content: People born in November were significantly less likely to experience depression. Suicide linked to birth month
According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), an estimated 90 percent of individuals who commit suicide suffer from mental illness. It should come as no surprise, then, that suicidal behavior may also be linked to birth month. Another British research team examined the data from nearly 27,000 suicides between 1970 and 2001 and found that individuals born in April, May, and June had the greatest risk of committing suicide. Their risk was 17 percent higher than that of people whose birthdays fell in the autumn or winter. Why does season matter? Scientists aren’t quite sure why some birth months are linked to greater incidences of mental health disorders than others, although there are a few possibilities. One possibility is that birth month influences our biological clock. In a 2010 study, scientists found that mice born in the winter were less able to adapt to a summer light cycle than mice born in other seasons. Our ability to regulate our biological clock is strongly linked to mood.