Paul Hetzler
The Advocate
As Dean Martin crooned in the iconic 1987 film Moonstruck, “When the moon hits your eye like a bigga pizza pie, that’s insomnia.”
Wait, no! “…that’s amore,” not insomnia. But it turns out that how long you sleep drops way off around the time of the full moon, whether or not it hits your eye. And to some extent, the moon can even influence how we feel as well.
Studies on how the lunar cycle impacts our sleep used to rely on test participants’ reports, upon getting up each morning reporting how well and how much they had slept the night before. This was a major flaw. I mean, it’s tough to rate your sleep quality when you are unconscious the whole time. It’s no surprise that results were all over the map.
However, the advent of “smart watches” solved that problem.
In 2021, scientists from the National University of Quilmes in Argentina, the University of Washington and Yale University joined forces on the largest, most in-depth study on lunar cycles and sleep ever done. Thanks to wrist devices that recorded heart rate, brain activity and other factors, it was the most accurate, too. The verdict? Earth’s only natural satellite appears to have a big effect on sleep.
Studies took deep dive
To reach this conclusion, researchers monitored the sleep of 98 people for several months in three Argentine villages. One village had a modern electric grid, while another had limited access to power, with each house having just one or two electric lights. A third settlement was very remote and had no electricity at all. In every case, participants’ sleep changed with each lunar cycle.
Although the effect was greatest in the village with no power, it was significant in modern, well-lighted homes, too.
On average, participants fell asleep 30 minutes later and woke about 15 minutes earlier during the three nights prior to a full moon. In the village with no power at all, participants slept a whole hour less on each of the three nights leading up to a full moon.
The scientists said the changes in sleep patterns they saw might be an ancient adaptation for making use of additional hours of light during each full moon. Regardless, they say that this phenomenon must be taken into account in all sleep studies going forward.
Gravitational pull plays role
But moonlight isn’t the only thing that varies with each lunar cycle. The moon’s gravitational pull is enough to slosh our planet’s oceans around, creating the tides. Given that we are about 60 per cent water, it seems logical to conclude the moon must tug at us in some way. Exactly how and to what degree, though, remains an open question.
The idea that the moon can tweak our emotions goes back a long way. Indeed the term “lunacy” was coined in the 16th century to describe this very effect. These days this word is offensive, though until being banned in 2012, it was on the books in a number of federal laws in the United States.
It might not be called lunacy today, but some emergency room workers and law enforcement personnel have reported a rise in “crazy behaviours” leading to hospital admissions and arrests around the full moon.
Although science has yet to find a clear link between moon and mood across the board, there is evidence that the moon’s position does affect people with bipolar disorder.
Some affected more than others
In 2018, Dr. Thomas A. Wehr, a scientist at the National Institute for Mental Health in the U.S., released the results of a two-year study on potential lunar effects on bipolar illness involving 17 patients who suffered from the illness.
Wehr found a distinct pattern of these patients rapidly switching between the manic and depressive stages of bipolar illness at certain lunar phases. The most significant changes precisely corresponded to the “supermoon,” when a full moon happens within 24 hours of the time it comes closest to Earth in its monthly orbit. Although Wehr doesn’t claim the moon caused the mood oscillations he saw, he did say the data suggest a possible biological pathway through which lunar gravitational pull might affect moods.
A lesser-known lunar effect happens through tidal movements creating electricity. It’s not enough to harness and plug into the grid, but when salt water passes back and forth across the face of our planet, it induces tiny yet measurable electric currents. Indirectly, this could have an impact, because electrical fields are proven to alter human brain function.
In 2019, a research team from the University of Tokyo and the California Institute of Technology showed that humans can detect natural geomagnetic currents. They found that even minute electrical fields can reduce human alpha-wave brain activity. Alpha waves are associated with relaxed or meditative states.
Knowing that we all lose sleep as the full moon approaches, we should try to exercise a great deal more patience in the ways we conduct our relationships, motor vehicles and other things that have a high hazard potential should something go awry.