‘Poorer quality sleep’
When the Moon was round, the volunteers took longer to nod off and had poorer quality sleep, despite being shut in a darkened room, Current Biology reports. They also had a dip in levels of a hormone called melatonin that is linked to natural-body clock cycles.
When it is dark, the body makes more melatonin. And it produces less when it is light. Being exposed to bright lights in the evening or too little light during the day can disrupt the body’s normal melatonin cycles. But the work in Current Biology, by Prof Christian Cajochen and colleagues from Basel University in Switzerland, suggests the Moon’s effects may be unrelated to its brightness.
The volunteers were unaware of the purpose of the study and could not see the Moon from their beds in the researchers’ sleep lab. They each spent two separate nights at the lab under close observation. Findings revealed that around the full Moon, brain activity related to deep sleep dropped by nearly a third. Melatonin levels also dipped. The volunteers also took five minutes longer to fall asleep and slept for 20 minutes less when there was a full Moon.
Some people may be exquisitely sensitive to the Moon, say the researchers. Their study did not originally set out to investigate a lunar effect.
Do you experience disturbance in your sleep pattern during Full Moon? What do you think is the reason behind this?
Source: Michelle Roberts | BBC News
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