Full Moon Myth Busted: Lunar Changes May Affect Sleep But It Does Not Influence Behavior

Researchers revealed that the full moon has a huge impact when it comes to affecting one's sleep. Contrary to popular beliefs however, it was noted that the full moon does not influence one's mental state.

Years have passed and it was always believed that the full moon has a drastic effect on one's mental state. Hence, the word luna, lunacy and loony were formed as it believed that the full moon can potentially ignite one's craziness. Though the superstition may have been around for years, it was debunked by science.

According to a journal "Frontiers in Pediatrics" it was noted that the full moon does affect an individual's sleep, but it does not however have any effect when it comes to one's psychological state. The researchers did a study involving 5,812 children from all parts of the globe. It was noted that they used children as they are more susceptible to changed compared to adults.

The researchers aim is to measure the level of sleep each child gets when the full moon rises. Their goal is to find a correlation between the child's sleep and the rising of the full moon.

According to Science Daily, the full moon affected the children's sleep as they tend to sleep late when the full moon rises. Though there's a correlation between the full moon and the child's lack of sleep, researchers were not able to pinpoint the exact reason as to why it happens.

They did however note that the children's activity level remained the same, despite the lunar changes. The researchers then added that 1 percent of their sleep time was affected.

"Our study provides compelling evidence that the moon does not seem to influence people's behavior," Dr. Jean Philippe Chaput from the Eastern Ontario Research told Science Daily. "The only significant finding was the 1% sleep alteration in full moon, and this is largely explained by our large sample size that maximizes statistical power."