Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: charli on 02/06/2021 08:59:30
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Our listener Erika would like to know:
"Does the moon, in any phase, affect human emotions? Could the moon impact our sleep cycles?
Is there a legitimate scientific way to confirm the Moon's influence or lack thereof?"
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Hello Erika!
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We did have a Slight discussion bout the Effects of the Moon.
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Perhaps you may find it an interesting read...
Until Others Respond to the OP.
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P.S. - https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=82004.0
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Hi.
"Does the moon, in any phase, affect human emotions?
Yes, it cheers me up when I see a good sized moon on a clear night. A lot of people seem to notice the moon and comment on it.
Could the moon impact our sleep cycles?
Yes. Most bright lights affect our sleep. So do most noises and there are often more animals moving about when they have a bright moon to see by.
Is there a legitimate scientific way to confirm the Moon's influence or lack thereof?"
Some experiments have been done observing sleep and general patterns of behaviour for volunteers that agreed to live in artificially lit chambers for lengthy periods of time and/or cave explorers willing to stay underground for weeks. The main findings seemed to be that human beings will tend to lengthen their time both asleep and awake (but especially sleeping) - this effectively increases the total length of their typical day beyond 24 hours. I'm not aware of any connection between sleep patterns and moon phases being proposed but to be honest this would require many, many months of continued isolation and most of the experiments did not run that long.
You must know that screening out all the gravitational effects from the moon would be much harder to do (until we develop more regular space travel).