{"id":2803,"date":"2012-06-16T15:37:52","date_gmt":"2012-06-16T20:37:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=2803"},"modified":"2012-06-16T15:37:52","modified_gmt":"2012-06-16T20:37:52","slug":"the-deadly-birthday-blues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=2803","title":{"rendered":"The Deadly Birthday Blues"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m one of those people who want to ignore birthdays. Well, my own birthday, anyway. When I was a kid it was great, a small version of Christmas, the promise of loot and bounty! As well as a bit of attention. <\/p>\n

But after college, the attraction started to wear off for me. The attention from others was nice, but I started to see the irony of being appreciated on one day out of the year. I used to call it “queen for a day” (I was thinking of an old afternoon TV show<\/a> from the 1960s, not a gay thing). Come the day after, it’s back to being just another schmoe. Add 1 to the date of your birthday, and that’s “Happy Schmoe-dom” Day.<\/p>\n

Then you hit 40 and 50, and every birthday serves to rub it in that “life passes swiftly by and opportunity is lost”, as the Buddhist Evening Gatha says. I didn’t stop counting after 40, as some people joke about, but I stopped playing it up. I became more and more gruff when people at work would mention it; I even walked out of a surprise birthday party (obviously that my last birthday party at work, even though I walked back in after a minute’s pause to regain my wits). Nowadays, I get together with my brother at a restaurant as the sun sets on my ‘special day’, but otherwise the anniversary of my birth has become just another day. And that’s just fine with me.<\/p>\n

So, I couldn’t stop from indulging in an ironic chuckle the other day when I saw an article about the chances of dying<\/a> on one’s birthday. A recent Swiss study of 2.4 million people suggests that the chance of dying is higher on one’s birthday — 14 percent higher, on average. The risk increases with age, to 18 percent when you pass 60 (which I soon will). <\/p>\n

Increased suicide accounts for a portion of this effect, but not the majority of it. There are more accidents, heart attacks and strokes too. The scientists who did the study rejected the notion that this effect was driven by sick people struggling to make it to their next birthday (which would imply that birthdays are a good thing). The data seems to support my theory that making a big deal about birthdays is stressful and depressing for many people (i.e., older people).<\/p>\n

PS, One of my uncles died on his birthday. Given the circumstances, I don’t think it was a coincidence. So if you’re over the age of 40, watch out for them birthday blues!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m one of those people who want to ignore birthdays. Well, my own birthday, anyway. When I was a kid it was great, a small version of Christmas, the promise of loot and bounty! As well as a bit of attention. But after college, the attraction started to wear off for me. The attention from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2803"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2803"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2803\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2805,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2803\/revisions\/2805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}