Rail Companies Use Blue Lights To Tackle Japan's Suicide Problem

// added October 23, 2009 // 45 comments //
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With over 32,249 suicides each year in Japan, its safe to say this country has the serious case of the blues. To tackle this problem rail companies have installed calming blue lights on platforms in the hopes this will curb the increasing trend of death by train.
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45 comments // Rail Companies Use Blue Lights To Tackle Japan's Suicide Problem

  • andrewtokyojapan
    • 0
      andrewtokyojapan  

    • Mental health professionals in Japan have long known that the reason for the unnecessarily high suicide rate in Japan is due to unemployment, bankruptcies, and the increasing levels of stress on businessmen and other salaried workers who have suffered enormous hardship in Japan since the bursting of the stock market bubble here that peaked around 1997. Until that year Japan had an annual suicide of rate figures between 22,000 and 24,000 each year. Following the bursting of the stock market and the long term economic downturn that has followed here since the suicide rate in 1998 increased by around 35% and since 1998 the number of people killing themselves each year in Japan has consistently remained well over 30,000 each and every year to the present day.

      The current worldwide recession is of course impacting Japan too, so unless very proactive and well funded local and nation wide suicide prevention programs and initiatives are immediately it is very difficult to foresee the governments previously stated intention to reduce the suicide rate to around 23,000 by the year 2016 being achievable. On the contrary the numbers, and the human suffering and the depression and misery that the people who become part of these numbers, have to endure may well stay at the current levels that have persistently been the case here for the last ten years. It could even get worse unless even more is done to prevent this terrible loss of life.

      The current numbers licensed psychiatrists (around 13,000), Japan Society of Certified Clinical Psychologists clinical psychologists (16,732 as of 2007), and Psychiatric Social Workers (39,108 as of 2009) must indeed be increased. In order for professional mental health counseling and psychotherapy services to be covered for depression and other mental illnesses by public health insurance it would seem advisable that positive action is taken to resume and complete the negotiations on how to achieve national licensing for clinical psychologists in Japan through the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare and not just the Ministry of Education as is the current situation. These discussions were ongoing between all concerned mental health professional authorities that in the ongoing select committee and ministerial levels that were ongoing during the Koizumi administration. With the current economic recession adding even more hardship and stress in the lives its citizens, now would seem to be a prime opportunity for the responsible Japanese to take a pro-active approach to finally providing government approval for national licensing for clinical psychologists who provide mental health care counseling and psychotherapy services to the people of Japan.

      Useful telephone number for Japanese residents of Japan who speak Japanese and are feeling depressed or suicidal: Inochi no Denwa (Lifeline Telephone Service)：

      Japan: 0120-738-556 Tokyo: 3264 4343

      Andrew Grimes

      Tokyo Counseling Services

      http://tokyocounseling.com/english/

      http://tokyocounseling.com/jp/

      http://www.counselingjapan.com

    • 3 months ago
  • desertcat
    • 0
      desertcat  

    • 60 Minutes did a report on Japan's high suicide rate among high school students over 20 years ago. The pressure of getting high grades to be able to get into the better colleges was the reason. Now its pressured of the job and the economy and being alone. I think it is all a conspiracy of the drug manufacturers to get us addicted to their new pills.

    • 4 months ago
  • RojoGatto
  • Onyx_Honda
    • 0
      Onyx_Honda  

    • I thought making things blue would cause people to have depressive feelings, no?

      Anyway, I don't think that those blue lights will make anyone happy. In fact, they make the whole platform look somber.

      Perhaps the real reason the suicide rate is so high in Japan, is because even though there's so many people jammed into the smallest of spaces, I'm sure there are many people who are lonely.

      The Japanese are very big on family and pride and self-preservation and so if you don't have a big family or they disown you or something, then they feel that there must be something wrong with themselves rather than the other way around.

      Also, I heard that mental illness is still a BIG TABOO in Japan and that you are not supposed to talk about problems and stuff like that nor are you to seek psychiatric help if you feel depressed or anxious. That could also explain why the number of suicides is so high.

      Sad.

    • 4 months ago
  • UWAZell
  • eden49
  • zichi
    • 0
      zichi  

    • suicide by train does happen but the most common method is by hanging and more recently by poisonous gas which ends up killing others too.

      if someone commits suicide by train, the family of the deceased will get a clean up bill for around $80,000, and since many commit suicide because of financial problems this isn't the way to go!

      Japan does not have the highest level of suicides I think that belongs to Estonia?

      Most suicides by train happen during the day time so the blue light thing don't help much!

    • 4 months ago
  • monijr01
  • cheeseAndCrackers
  • DeliaTheArtist
  • Nephwrack
  • Nettle
  • metalcookiesxy70
  • xJasper
    • 0
      xJasper  

    • One shouldn't underestimate the effect of colour on the brain, and how subtly the brain can function, but they should be investing their money in better mental health care.

    • 4 months ago
  • unimatrix0
  • Nephwrack
  • monijr01
  • metalcookiesxy70
  • NumLock
  • larrysnotes
  • diode
    • 0
      diode  

    • population control. its working for japan. now if only the US could hop on board maybe we'd be world leaders in everything instead of a burdening bunch of welfare wastes of space

    • 4 months ago
  • J_Jammer
  • diode
    • 0
      diode  
    • diode:

      due to high standards that we don't have nor have the dedication to uphold.

      weeds out weaklings. can't deal with life? stop wasting our resources. works for me. of course they want more kids, they ones they have are killing themselves

    • 4 months ago
  • J_Jammer
  • JeremyGoode
  • kylewithac
  • monijr01
    • 0
      monijr01  
    • diode:

      J_Jammer is right on this one. and while i would love to kill of all the weak parts of society, i don't think japan is benefitting by losing middle aged men with families, who have valuable corporate experience they could be passing on.

    • 4 months ago
  • RFIDemocracy
  • monijr01
  • RFIDemocracy
  • monijr01
    • 0
      monijr01  
    • diode:

      is there some universal format for typing sarcasm? did i miss that in my keyboarding classes? god, i shouldn't have played hookie so often. now my input in forum's will be forever tainted.

    • 4 months ago
  • hpseaton
    • 0
      hpseaton  
    • diode:

      Someone has read too much Nietzsche, but without the benefit of understanding what they are reading. Next thing Diode will be announcing he is the Overman.

    • 4 months ago
  • diode
    • 0
      diode  
    • diode:

      don't you know who i am? i'm the Übermensch bitch

      and believe you me i've done plenty of reading on the works of friedrich and its got nothing to do with my opinions on ridding the world of the weak

    • 4 months ago
  • kylewithac
  • HowdyDo
  • eden49
  • J_Jammer
  • occhipij
  • Nephwrack
  • RFIDemocracy
    • 0
      RFIDemocracy  
    • J_Jammer:

      Tokyo, most populated city on earth. Stressful?
      I remember reading about really severe alcoholism amongst successful business execs back in the eighties.
      Like suits unconscious with piss-stains on their clothes in public places.
      Japan has suffered from social ills for a long time.

    • 4 months ago
  • monijr01
  • RFIDemocracy
    • 0
      RFIDemocracy  
    • Image...
    • J_Jammer:

      "are you 12 years old?"
      Forget about it. I'm too old for you

      "do you think at all before typing?"
      Yes, and I use punctuation.

      "that didn't make any sense!"

      Does this?

      **Psychiatric News-Japan Bucks World Trend
      While alcohol consumption is dropping in most of the industrialized world, it is rising in Japan. "In the past 30 years total alcohol consumption, the number of alcoholics, and the drinking population have increased by almost 250 percent," Maruyama told Psychiatric News.

      The latest survey by Japan’s Ministry of Health and Welfare (MHW) found that an estimated 67 percent of the 126,686,000 population drink, and almost 2.5 million, or about 2 percent, are alcoholics or heavy drinkers. The Japanese define a heavy drinker as someone who drinks the equivalent of 150 ml or more of pure alcohol a day. (In the United States, alcoholism affects about 12 million men and 4 million women.) Apart from patient surveys, no other sources are available to calculate the percentage of problem drinkers in Japan.

      According to a 1999 MHW survey, 19,400 alcoholics were admitted to Japan’s psychiatric hospitals. "This is considerably smaller than expected from the estimated 2 percent to 2.3 percent of heavy drinkers, suggesting that many alcoholics are not diagnosed or fall through the cracks," Masaaki Matsushita, M.D., director of Tokyo Metropolitan Matsuzawa Hospital, told Psychiatric News. Fifteen percent of admissions to general hospitals were for exacerbation of symptoms due to drinking.

      Drinking cuts across all levels of society. Sixty percent of problem drinkers are men, like Toyoshi Suzuki, who claim that getting drunk with clients and coworkers is part of their job and a mark of company loyalty.

      Matsushita attributes the rising number of alcoholics among men in their 50s to unemployment and social unrest. The suicide rate is highest in this age group and more than twice that of the general population.

      "The latest figures from the National Tax Agency show that the Japanese drink 6.5 liters a year, which has remained fairly constant for more than 10 years now," Kurihama National Hospital’s Susumi Higuchi, M.D., told Psychiatric News. Worldwide annual alcohol-consumption rates range from two to 15 liters. Americans consume 8.9 liters on average. Because many Japanese women are teetotalers, however, Japanese men in their 50s probably drink more than twice as much as their American contemporaries, according to some experts.**

      Do you think before posting?

    • 4 months ago
  • Nettle
    • 0
      Nettle  
    • J_Jammer:

      Lol, Japanese society has a lot of problems that aren't related to their healthcare. You gotta admit that their life expectancy is higher than anywhere else in the world.

    • 4 months ago
  • monijr01
    • 0
      monijr01  
    • J_Jammer:

      RFIDemocracy: there is no correlation between japan's health care plan and their suicide rates, which is what J-Jammer implied. I understand a connection between alcoholism and suicide, but are you somehow trying to tie the two to a countries healthcare plan? Countries with comprehensive healthcare have more alcoholics and suicides? Where's that article?

      XXOO

    • 4 months ago
  • RFIDemocracy
    • 0
      RFIDemocracy  
    • J_Jammer:

      What was the subject of the article?
      Oh right... suicide, not healthcare.

      ""In the past 30 years total alcohol consumption, the number of alcoholics, and the drinking population have increased by almost 250 percent," Maruyama told Psychiatric News."

      What could that possibly have to do with suicide?

    • 4 months ago
  • monijr01
    • 0
      monijr01  
    • J_Jammer:

      you do understand that you commented to J-Jammer's post about healthcare and money having a correlation to suicide?

      I'm not trying to dispute facts about alcohol use and suicide, but you should check the thread.

    • 4 months ago
  • jcub

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