Moon Phases On Sleep And Mood

Blue moon, Full moon, Harvest moon, Hunter’s moon, Supermoon and moon eclipses are all beautiful to look at and fascinating stuff of lore and myth.  Moon phases on sleep and mood disturbances are more than just a phenomenon!

A phenomenon is an observable event or situation that causality can’t be totally explained.  There are hundreds of them in nature that give scientists reason to conduct scientific investigations.

Exactly how and why the moon causes disturbances in sleep and mood is not yet known, yet studies are slowly racking up saying that there is a correlation.

I don’t pay attention to moon phases before I go to bed, but when I have a particularly retched sleepless night, tossing and turning with multiple awakenings leaving me feeling exhausted the next day, I have noticed that it often correlates with either a full moon or new moon!

Ancient man had similar observances of how the moon affects humans and those oral renditions were passed down and preserved for the next generations.

Farmers have recorded from many years ago an observable connection between moon phases and plant growth.

This has expanded to a whole calendar of when and what to plant in accordance with the different moon phases of each month.

I generally try to garden according to the moon calendar recommendations out of concern to give my seedlings and plants the best of all starts.

As a psychotherapist, I am not a scientific investigator, but a clinician on the frontline of witnessing human moods in various degrees of expression, from the pathological to normal.

While genetic influences are certainly there, as well as situational, human mood responses are extremely complicated that can’t be easily explained by some simple rule of measurement.

I prefer to take a holistic approach to understand mental illness and sleep disturbances, including being open to possible influences that are not totally proven.

It might be easy to quickly dismiss any unproven phenomena, that we observe in nature, yet I find that attitude extremely arrogant and reeking of narcissism.   There is still tremendous more to discover in our universe!

I am often reminded that just a little over 150 years ago, the idea that bacteria might be the cause of some diseases was just plain hogwash.

Why? Simply because microscopic bacteria were not visible to the naked human eye! The old adage that if it ain’t visible then it must not be true still colours our thinking in multiple arenas today.

Fortunately, men like Ignaz Semmelweis and Louis Pasteur went the extra mile to explain observable phenomena and take action.

Hungarian obstetrician Semmelweis in 1847, who wondered about an observable correlation between maternal childbirth infections and death and doctors who did autopsies, went the extra mile to investigate.

By requiring that doctors wash their hands with chlorinated lime water before examining pregnant women, he noticing a direct reduction of postpartum illness and deaths.

It wasn’t till I saw the vast tidal expansions on Mont Saint Michel on the Normandy coast that I witnessed first hand the extreme power of the moon phases on the ocean tides.

All along the Normandy coast, you can see vast areas of sand bared and submerged in high and low tides, but the tidal variances on Mont Saint Michel are the most dramatic of the entire European coastlines!

Between 36 and 48 hours after a new or full moon, the tide surrounding Mont Saint Michel rises 15 meters and rushes in as fast as a horse gallops flooding 15 kilometres of sand surrounding the mont, at times causing it to be an island!

That is extremely powerful!  A new moon and a full moon have one thing in common, called syzygy.  This occurs when the moon and the sun all line up in a straight line.

When this happens the gravitational force of the sun reinforces the gravitational pull of the moon.  When we have supermoons, the forces are even stronger due to the proximity of the moon to the earth.

We can’t see a new moon, but the gravitational pulls are almost as strong as a full moon which of course is very visible.

If this phenomenon is so powerful to pull tons of water 15 kilometres, imagine what it can do to human bodies composed of up to 60% plus water depending on age and gender.

Our brains are composed of even more water, up to 75%! No wonder they are given to gravitational pull or stimulation by heavenly bodies such as the moon and sun.

We already have good documentation on the seasonal effects on mood, based on the available natural light that influences our pineal glands and therefore hormonal fluctuations of melatonin.

Although we do have some studies to demonstrate how moon phases affect sleep and moods, there are less being conducted than with seasonal mood changes.

I remember being amazed at how my bipolar patients consistently showed mood variations during the spring and autumn months even when taking therapeutic doses of mood stabilizers.

Some of these variances were so severe that the patient needed hospitalization!   I must add that bipolar patients can also be overly stimulated by social stimulation, noise and lack of sleep, that may be also influenced by moon phases.

We still can not fully explain this phenomenon! Nor can we explain why full moon increases childbirths or causes in some patients mood disturbances, even psychosis, that the ancients called “lunacy”.

Fortunately, not all humans have a genetic tendency to have cycling mood variations, that result in mental illnesses.  But those who do, are definitely more sensitive to seasonal changes and moon phases.

Brain stimulation, be it from light, noise or other forms of vibrational and gravitational pulls do affect neuronal balances.

We are now using deep brain stimulation,  targeting certain areas of the brain to help relieve depression for example.

If you are lucky enough to not have any mood disorders, you might not be as sensitive to moon phases sleep disturbance as someone who does.

In a fairly recent experiment, conducted by the University of Basel, Switzerland in 2013, the findings definitely demonstrated full moon sleep disturbances.

Neither the participants nor the investigators of the study knew the purpose of the study to eliminate any bias, as all were told of another reason.

Ages group concentrated on 33 subjects, 20 to 31 years old and those 57 to 74 years of age. The sleep study was conducted in windowless sleep labs, in order to rule out light variations.

The results of the study showed that during a full moon, there was an overall 30% less brain activity associated with deep sleep in participants.  There were less and shorter deep sleep REM cycles.

It took participants longer to fall asleep and there was a decrease in the hormone melatonin production.  Each participant indicated a subjected perception of poorer sleep during the full moon.

Several studies have noted that during a full moon there has been more psychiatric hospital emergency admits, although not all are conclusive.

I even saw one study indicating an increase in veterinarian emergency admits for pets during a full moon too.

There are theories that the moon gravitational field helps keep the axis tilt of the earth stable, keeping it from wobbling.

If the moon has the power to maintain the stability of the earth’s tilt, and pull up tons of ocean water twice a day, it certainly must have some effect on human cells!

Recent evidence also points to seismic activity on the moon caused by tidal forces between Earth and the moon that I suspect has some vibrational effect on humans too.

As to what to do about sleepless nights experienced during new and full moon phases, I personally take a natural hands-off approach.  It definitely can be a nuisance, like the common cold.

Sure, you could take some melatonin to offset the reduced production of the hormone, if you know beforehand and need to have better sleep to be very alert the next day.

The bottom line for me is that humans beings are far more sensitive to rhythmic heavenly bodies,  within their galaxies than we know.    Just because we can not yet fully pinpoint causality nor explain why doesn’t take away the strength of a phenomenon. 

P.S. If you have noticed moon-related sleep or mood disturbances, please leave a comment below.  Thank you in advance!