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Effects of the Full Moon

The full moon was discussed many years ago on this site by Mr. McDonnell with respect to markets with results “consistent with randomness”. It would seem though that the day(s) after a full moon and particularly near the end of a difficult week might cause some sleep deficit effects to show in sensitive individuals–but perhaps extra coffee is used to counter such things.

Blame Bad night’s Sleep on the Moon“:

Malcom von Schantz, a sleep and circadian researcher at the University of Surrey in the U.K., called the new findings “fascinating” because they run counter to the results of several other studies that failed to find a link between the moon and human behavior.

“Essentially, every report published to date has failed to show significant associations between the phase of the moon and any number of behavioral and physiological parameters,” von Schantz, who was not involved in the study, said in an email.”This is the very first report that suggests an association with one behavior, sleep, and of course it’s a behavior that in our species normally occurs at night.”

Evidence That the Lunar Cycle Influences Human Sleep”:

We found that around full moon, electroencephalogram (EEG) delta activity during NREM sleep, an indicator of deep sleep, decreased by 30%, time to fall asleep increased by 5 min, and EEG-assessed total sleep duration was reduced by 20 min. These changes were associated with a decrease in subjective sleep quality and diminished endogenous melatonin levels. This is the first reliable evidence that a lunar rhythm can modulate sleep structure in humans when measured under the highly controlled conditions of a circadian laboratory study protocol without time cues.