Bad sleep with a full moon: fact or fable?

Yes, last week it was that time again... No. Eye. Closed. Had a lovely ceiling duty the whole week, really super. Now, I'm not a good sleeper anyway, but this week was definitely a low point. I have that every now and then and I've long accepted it. But still, every time I have a few of those hellish nights, I check it again... Full moon? Yes, indeed. May 7th was that time again. Cause known.

Because that is immediately my conclusion: full moon = bad sleep. Seemed generally known to me, right? As often as people say they slept poorly, they follow up with that it was a full moon and then everyone understands what you mean. ‘Ah, full moon, of course you sleep poorly then.’ But, is there any scientific evidence for that? So I went on a little research.

Well, the revealing word is this: you can absolutely complain about your poor sleep during a full moon. Because there is indeed scientific evidence for it. Whether it is really overwhelming evidence, not so much, and I think it varies greatly from person to person how sensitive you are to it, but here's the thing: during a full moon, you produce less melatonin (the sleep hormone). This results in an average of twenty minutes less sleep during on our sleep. Or the power of. The REM sleep is longer, averaging about thirty minutes.

And the fact that REM sleep lasts longer can also make you feel less rested. During that REM sleep, you dream a lot and your brain is therefore very active. Not exactly ideal for that rested feeling. Long story short: YES, full moon is just completely bad for your sleep. Complaining about it is therefore completely allowed, I hereby declare.

Just a small side note: these figures come from a Swiss and Swedish study, which is actually almost always referenced when it comes to full moon and sleep. The Max Planck Institute also researched this with a thousand test subjects and found no correlation. According to them, full moon would therefore have no influence. So there hasn't been enough research done on it yet, but hey, a little evidence has been found. That's enough for now.