A WWLP.com news report indicates that a full moon can lower the quality of sleep and impact sleep duration.
The full moon was associated with a 20-minute reduction of total sleep time, the study authors found.
Researchers also found that it took about five minutes longer for participants to fall asleep around a full moon than around a new moon. Deep sleep was, on average, 30% decreased around the time of a full moon.
People sleeping in the lab nearer to the day of a full moon also had lower evening levels of melatonin, a hormone important to circadian rhythm that drives the body’s cycles of day and night and, therefore, wakefulness and sleep.
“We have evidence that the distance to the nearest full-moon phase significantly influences human sleep and evening melatonin levels when measured under strictly controlled laboratory conditions, where factors such as light and personal moon perception can be excluded,” the study authors wrote.
