I consider myself a happy person. I am optimistic, outgoing, and always in the mood to brighten someone’s day. Is it because that is what I was taught as a child or is it because I was born in the summer? Research has shown that the month you were born can affect your overall behavior and health.

An article published on Daily Mail talks about how research has been done that proves that the season of birth affects the way the body functions. Professor Douglas McMahon used mice to prove this hypothesis. McMahon took mice and exposed them to various amount of light. He expose some to 16 hours, which represents the summer, and 8 hours, which represents winter. He studied how this exposure to light affected the function of the mouse by exposing all of the mice to pure darkness. He found that the mice exposed to “summer” light were able to function normally and keep a routine in complete darkness, but the mice exposed to “winter” light had a hard time adjusting and coping to the change. McMahon said that these reactions by the winter mice were similar to those with seasonal affective disorder which is a form of depression that occurs due to the lack of life around fall and winter. This study proposes the possibility that the amount of light a newborn is exposed to could affect their mood as they age. There are also many theories behind the timing of birth. One says that those born in the winter have more allergies because they do not have the extra exposure to Vitamin D, which helps a human’s immune system. Vitamin D also helps with bone growth, and researchers found that children who had higher amounts of vitamin D in their blood were taller on average than those born in winter months.  Another theory is summer babies are more at risk for nearsightedness, because the extra exposure to sun at a young age can cause issues with the development of the eye. Some say that summer (or spring) babies that have extra exposure to sunlight and are exposed to more longer, summer days are more likely to stay up later than the winter babies who have only experienced shorter, darker winter days. An anonymous study found that summer babies also are less clever because they are exposed to more pesticides than winter babies which affect the development of the brain. Although these theories seem realistic, they are not scientifically backed up so they cannot be proven true. Many scientists have put in time in effort in studying how birth month affects personality. Most of the explanations are explained using zodiac signs. Every horoscope is different, and the personality traits are dependent on the four elements (water, fire, earth and air) that your zodiac contains.

A study done by Swedish researchers looks at a wintertime heart disease and who it affects. They came to the conclusion that babies born in summer months (April-September) are at greater risk of death of this disease because of their lack of exposure to winter days and temperatures at an early age.

The month in which you were born does not affect your destiny, but there are some advantages/disadvantages that babies born in winter and summer experience. One should not plan the season of birth for their child based off of these findings, but they should be aware of and prepared for the possible risks that they may encounter.