No wonder I couldn’t sleep, the moon was out!

When it comes to natural things that can have a big impact on our lives, there’s nothing quite like the moon.  After all, the word lunatic comes from lunar, the full moon brings out all the crazies, once in a blue moon is something very rare, and there’s even the recently-invented super moon to contend with.  The moon controls the tides and, perhaps, our lives.  A Swiss researcher says that the phase of the moon has a direct impact on sleep quality, with the full moon functioning as a negative.

“It took me more than four years until I decided to publish the results, because I did not believe it myself,” admitted Christian Cajochen, a professor and the director of the Centre for Chronobiology at the University of Basel in Switzerland.  “I was also surprised to see, that besides sleep, also evening melatonin levels were affected by lunar phase.”  He added, “If somebody thinks he or she is sensitive to the moon effects on sleep, [doctors] should probably account for that.”

So how does the moon affect sleep?  The researchers are not sure, aside from the drop in melatonin levels.  According to the sleep studies picked over by Cajochen, during the full moon sleepers took 5 minutes longer to get to sleep and spent 20 minutes less dozing, as well as generally less-quality sleep.  The full results are available in Current Biology.

Tags: full moon, full moon and sleep, full moon and sleep study, Christian Cajochen, Switzerland,  Centre for Chronobiology, University of Basel, health news, unusual health news, sleep news, full moon messes with sleep, sleep patterns, current biology, lunar phase, full moon causes drop in melatonin levels, melatonin levels and moon phases

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