On Nights Before a Full Moon, People Go to Bed. On Nights Before a Full Moon, People Go to Bed Later and Sleep Less, Study Shows
For centuries, humans have blamed the moon for our moods, accidents and even natural disasters. But new research indicates that our planet’s celestial companion impacts something else entirely our sleep.
In a paper published Jan. 27 in Science Advances, scientists at the University of Washington, the National University of Quilmes in Argentina and Yale University report that sleep cycles in people oscillate during the 29.5-day lunar cycle: In the days leading up to a full moon, people go to sleep later in the evening and sleep for shorter periods of time. The research team, led by UW professor of biology Horacio de la Iglesia, observed these variations in both the time of sleep onset and the duration of sleep in urban and rural settings from Indigenous communities in northern Argentina to college students in Seattle, a city of more than 750,00
Credit: University of Washington
For centuries, humans have blamed the moon for our moods, accidents and even natural disasters. But new research indicates that our planet s celestial companion impacts something else entirely our sleep.
In a paper published Jan. 27 in
Science Advances, scientists at the University of Washington, the National University of Quilmes in Argentina and Yale University report that sleep cycles in people oscillate during the 29.5-day lunar cycle: In the days leading up to a full moon, people go to sleep later in the evening and sleep for shorter periods of time. The research team, led by UW professor of biology Horacio de la Iglesia, observed these variations in both the time of sleep onset and the duration of sleep in urban and rural settings from Indigenous communities in northern Argentina to college students in Seattle, a city of more than 750,000. They saw the oscillations regardless of an individual s access to electricity, though the variation