Large-scale study shows the Moon has a powerful influence on how we sleep



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Sleep is one of the most vital things a human does, but millions of us don’t get enough.

Some of the distractions that keep us from getting enough sleep are obvious. Others are less so, remaining mysterious and debated – even though they’ve likely disrupted human sleep for thousands of years.

In this case, we are talking about the Moon and its cycles, which have long been studied to study their potential impact on human sleep, although the results of such analyzes have been somewhat inconsistent.

In a new study – which the researchers say is one of the largest of its kind – a team of scientists monitored the sleep of more than 850 people in Uppsala, Sweden, using polysomnography measurements to determine the onset, duration and quality of their sleep for a single night. .

These overnight measurements have been recorded in individuals for several years, both in males and females. The nights recorded ended up representing different stages of the lunar cycle: when the new Moon “grows” until a full Moon (with its visible and illuminated area increasing in size), and also the “decreasing”, when the illumination decreases. after the full moon, in the period until the next new moon.

The idea is that the increasing brightness of the waxing Moon – reaching an optical crescendo on the night of the Full Moon – should affect human sleep overall, since people generally tend to sleep better with more darkness.

Some studies have indeed confirmed this theory, but others have failed to reproduce it.

In the new research, the results seem to confirm that lunar cycles have a significant and detectable influence on human sleep – but it’s interesting that not everyone is affected in the same way.

“We found that men whose sleep was recorded during the nights of the growth period of the lunar cycle had lower sleep efficiency and increased wakefulness after onset of sleep compared to men whose sleep was measured during the nights of the decay period, ”says neuroscientist and lead author. of the study, Christian Benedict of Uppsala University.

“In contrast, women’s sleep has remained largely unchanged by the lunar cycle.”

While the results for women were generally less suggestive of the Moon’s influence on their sleep patterns, the phenomenon is certainly not invisible.

The team’s article shows that the women in the study were on average nearly 12 minutes less sleep at night during the waxing period, compared to the decreasing nights.

That said, men slept more than 20 minutes less on waxing nights, and other markers of the Moon’s effects were also much more pronounced in men: including 3.4% less sleep efficiency. , more wakefulness and greater disturbances in the duration of the sleep phases during epilation. nights.

Because of this observational research, the team is not claiming that a causal effect is at work here.

“Our study, of course, cannot determine whether the association of sleep with the lunar cycle was causal or simply correlative,” said Benedict.

In other words, there’s definitely something going on here that seems to make people sleep differently, in sync with the brightness and full moon on any given night. It is just difficult to authoritatively determine the extent of this effect.

Nevertheless, the researchers are content to hazard a few guesses, in directions that are, once again, both obvious and not.

“With each additional day during the growth phase, the Moon reflects more sunlight back to Earth, reaching maximum illumination on the day of the full Moon,” the team writes in the study.

“Besides light, the circadian rhythms controlling the duration and quality of sleep are affected by non-photic signals, including gravity… The differences in the gravitational attraction of the Moon at bedtime between the increasing and decreasing phases could therefore explain some differences observed in sleep. “

There are also potential geomagnetic effects that may be involved, which warrants further investigation.

But for now, at least, the Moon acting as a huge misplaced mirror reflecting sunlight remains the most reasonable explanation for cyclical sleepless nights.

The results are reported in Total environmental science.

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