[ad_1]
Is the full moon change the way we sleep? Does it synchronize with menstrual cycles?
What might sound like old school myths might actually contain some truth. People go to bed later and sleep fewer hours before a full moon and menstrual cycles appear to temporarily synchronize with lunar cycles, the scientists found in two new studies.
Throughout history, humans have connected our daily life to the changing skies, especially the changing faces of the moon. Lore around the phases of the moon has ranged from full moons prompting werewolves to the cycle of the moon affecting the way we feel and our daily moods.
But, strangely enough, a few of these great tales seem to have roots in real science.
Related: The Moon: 10 surprising lunar facts
Sleep with the full moon
In a study published today (January 27) in the journal Science Advances, a team of scientists from the University of Washington, the National University of Quilmes in Argentina, and Yale University show how sleep cycles seem to change with the lunar cycle.
They found that in the days leading up to a full moon, people tend to fall asleep later and sleep fewer hours. For this work, the team studied students from the city of Seattle, Washington, as well as people living in indigenous communities in northern Argentina, two different environments where individual access to electricity is varied in because of how artificial light might affect the participants.
Using wrist-based sleep monitors, they studied 98 people living in three indigenous Toba-Qom communities in Formosa, Argentina and also used sleep data from 464 Seattle-area students (the Student data was originally collected for a separate study.).
The team found that while the connection between sleep cycles and lunar cycles is somewhat more evident in communities without access to electricity, the connection still appears to be present in areas with electricity.
“We are seeing a clear lunar modulation of sleep, with decreased sleep and later sleep in the days leading up to the full moon,” senior author Horacio de la Iglesia, professor of biology at the University of Washington, said in a statement. “And while the effect is more robust in communities without access to electricity, the effect is present in communities with electricity, including undergraduates at the University of Washington.”
In these groups, they showed that the nights before the full moon were the nights when people slept the least and went to bed later. These nights also had more light in the night sky after twilight as the waxing moon grew brighter.
“We hypothesize that the patterns we have observed are an innate adaptation that allowed our ancestors to take advantage of this natural source of evening light that occurred at a specific time in the lunar cycle,” said L study author Leandro Casiraghi, postdoctoral researcher at the University of Washington in the department of biology.
Menstrual and lunar cycles
Sleep cycles aren’t the only human function that appears to be affected by the moon, scientists say. It is not a new notion. In fact, for a long time people have suggested that there is a connection between the lunar and menstrual cycles, with some myths even suggesting that fertility and lunar cycles have some kind of connection, a controversial story.
In a separate study, also published today in Science Advances, the researchers showed that while all the myths surrounding this connection might not hold together, there could be a link between menstrual cycles and lunar cycles.
By analyzing the records of the menstrual cycle that 22 women kept for up to 32 years. They looked at long-term data on the onset of the menstrual cycle with data averaging 15 years and including information from women under and over 35. They compared this data to fluctuations in lunar cycles to see how the two aligned.
They found that among the women who participated, those whose menstrual cycles lasted more than 27 days showed “intermittently synchronized with cycles that affect the intensity of moonlight”, according to a statement. The team determined that this synchronization was slowly lost over time as participants got older and found that the link was weakened with increased exposure to artificial light.
Specifically, they concluded that “the menstrual cycles also aligned with the tropical month (the 27.32 days it takes for the moon to pass through the same equinox twice) 13.1% of the time in women 35 and under and 17.7% of the time in women over 35, suggesting that menstruation is also affected by changes in the moon’s gravity forces, ”the statement said.
Email Chelsea Gohd at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter @chelsea_gohd. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
[ad_2]
Source link