Until now, folklore has been responsible for associating with our natural satellite great responsibilities such as crime peaks, moods, the transformation of werewolves on a full moon … but, apparently , some of these tales or myths they seem to have roots in real science.
Does it interfere with sleep?
“Moonlight is so bright to the human eye that it is entirely reasonable to imagine that, in the absence of other light sources, this night light source could have played a role in modulating human nighttime activity and sleep.” the authors commented. “However, whether the cycle of the Moon can modulate human nocturnal activity and sleep remains a matter of controversy.”
Now, a team of scientists from the University of Washington, the National University of Quilmes in Argentina and Yale University suggest in their study published in the journal Science Advances that our ability to sleep is clearly affected by the lunar cycle, even when artificial light sources are taken into account.
Experiment
Using a series of wrist monitoring devices, the researchers tracked the sleep patterns of 98 people living in three indigenous communities in Argentina over the course of one to two months. One rural community had no access to electricity, a second rural community had limited access to electricity, while a third community was located in an urban environment and had full access to electricity (to also assess how artificial light could affect participants).
Which it was the result?
The team found that while the connection between sleep cycles and lunar cycles is slightly more obvious in communities without access to electricity, it was still present in areas with electricity.
Sleep cycles seem to change with the lunar cycle. They found that, in the days leading up to the full moon, the experiment volunteers tended to sleep later and sleep fewer hours before the full moon and did the opposite before the new moon phase.
“We see a clear lunar modulation of sleep, with decreased sleep and a late onset of sleep in the days before the full moon,” explains Horacio de la Iglesia, professor of biology at the University of Washington. “And while the effect is most robust in communities without access to electricity, the effect is present in communities with electricity, including college students at the University of Washington.”
“We presume that the patterns we observe are an innate adaptation that allowed our ancestors to take advantage of this natural source of evening light that occurred at a specific time during the lunar cycle ,” said Leandro Casiraghi, leader of the work.
This study showed a clear pattern that will affect sleep research in the future, according to the scientists. “In general, there has been a lot of suspicion about the idea that the phases of the moon could affect behavior like sleep,” Casiraghi said.
Menstrual cycles
In a separate study, published in the journal Science Advances, the researchers showed that there could also be some link between menstrual cycles and lunar cycles . Analyzing the menstrual cycle records of 22 women over 32 years, they compared this data with fluctuations in lunar cycles to see how the two parameters lined up. They found that, of the women who participated, those whose menstrual cycles lasted more than 27 days were “intermittently synchronized with cycles that affect the intensity of moonlight,” the authors explain.
The experts determined that this synchronization was slowly lost over time as the participants aged and found that the link decreased with greater exposure to artificial light. More specifically, they concluded that “menstrual cycles also align with the tropical month 13.1% of the time in women 35 years of age or younger and 17.7% of the time in women older than 35, suggesting that the Menstruation is also affected by changes in the gravimetric forces of the moon. “
Referencia: L. Casiraghi el al., “Moonstruck sleep: Synchronization of human sleep with the moon cycle under field conditions,” Science Advances (2021). advances.sciencemag.org/lookup … .1126/sciadv.abe0465 // Women temporarily synchronize their menstrual cycles with the luminance and gravimetric cycles of the Moon Science Advances (2021) DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abe1358
