Mysterious moon cycle and human behavior

The full moon has always been linked to the most bizarre dreams as well as the legends of wolfmen, and the scientific community began to find a solution to this phenomenon.

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If you keep wandering and still do not take a nap, try looking through the window of your room. New research shows that the moon may be the culprit for nights of sleep deprivation , and sleep may be missed by up to 50 minutes a night in volunteers. Even when a group was transferred to sleep in an ink-like room, without windows, they had to struggle in bed for 25 minutes compared to normal on full moon nights. This study has provided scientific evidence for word-of-mouths over the centuries, that the change in human behavior is related to the moon's cycle. Although not contributing to confirming the stories of werewolves, true research raises questions about the relationship between the biological clock and the moon's movement .

Bright moonlit nights can make people sleepless - (Photo: Mooidus.nl)

The scientific community has a clear evidence of the existence and activity of circadian rhythms in the human body. However, there are still conflicting ideas around the theory that there is the presence of the moon 's circadian rhythm , also known as the moon phase . In this regard, Team Leader Michael Smith, a graduate student at the University of Gothenburg (Sweden) concluded: 'The body is more likely to have a moon rhythm'. Accordingly, this function may be an advantage formed in the evolutionary process so that people become more active on bright moon nights for activities such as hunting or being on guard against threats. threatening.

The new discovery, published in the Current Biology journal, is based on the results of an earlier experiment with 47 people required to sleep under conditions arranged for 6 nights. The study focused on how people responded to noise during sleep, but Smith expert reevaluated the results and compared them to the lunar cycle. The results showed that the average volunteers slept less than 25 minutes when it was almost time for the full moon. Of these, men are particularly strongly affected by the moon, with sleepless periods of up to 50 minutes per night. Besides, every object is more sensitive to outside sounds during the full moon. Laboratory sleeping places have no windows, eliminating the effect of light.

Smith admitted that more experiments needed to be conducted before drawing firm conclusions about the connection between the full moon night and the human body. Russell Foster, a professor at Oxford University (UK), agrees that the study should be expanded before the negative results of Smith's report. Previously, British experts also reported that people often have vivid dreams at the time of the full moon. The psychologist Richard Wiseman of Hertfordshire University discovered that the content of human dreams does not change seasonally or day by week, but at the brightest moon of the month, dreams 'strange and bizarre' take place more often.