Full moon...less sleep?
Friday, October 11, 2013, 8:18 AM -
We've all heard of animals acting strange when there's a full moon and now, according to a new study in the journal Current Biology, that full moon may be affecting humans as well.
The data was collected ten years ago, but was just recently released.
According to the lead author, people tend to get lower quality sleep around the time of full moons-- taking longer to fall asleep and sleeping an average of 20 minutes less than they do during a new moon.
33 volunteers between the ages of 20 and 74 slept in a climate controlled laboratory with no windows for three and a half days. The participants and the researchers didn't plan to analyze the results in terms of lunar patterns, but decided to after the fact.
The limitation of this study?
The number of participants, 33, is very small, so researchers say it might not work on a wider population.
Also, apparently the researchers didn't control what the volunteers were exposed to the week before the study.
As a result, further research, over a longer period of time is needed.
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