Full moon and sleeplessness

[mint]

Coincidence or I was just plain k...ked?  Slept soundly last night!

Will be taking notes next full moon.  I wish my physio hadn't mentioned this thing about full moon insomnia because now I would EXPECT not to sleep when there is a full moon!

GGGrrrgggghhh.......it's like learning about Father Christmas or the Tooth Fairy, you can't unlearn it once someone's told you, can you?[:'(]

[YCCMB]

No, Mint, you can't unlearn it, but you can ignore it.

I make a point of not consciously following the phases of the moon. I don't know when the full moon is going to be, and I don't go out of my way to find out or notice. If I spend a sleepless night and I'm up roaming the house, I might look out of the window and see that the moon is full, and at that point I just accept that as a likely reason for my wakefulness, and assume that I might have a couple of dodgy nights, and will then resume my normal sleep pattern. The one conscious thing I've probably done (although it's more unconscious than conscious, I guess) is to decide that I don't really believe it. If that makes sense.

[mint]

I don't really believe it either!  EXCEPT, I have a sneaky suspicion that there is more than a grain of truth in it!  If that makes sense......?

[Patf]

Well I believe some of it, not sure about the planting though. Someone would have to do a proper experiment. Except there's often a big change in the weather at New Moon.

But sleeping - most people need a dark place to sleep. Maybe the bright moonlight almost fools some people into thinking it's still daytime.

Also when I was a student we did a course on animal behaviour and there's a lot of evidence to show that the ovulation of female animals is controlled by the moon. I think the theory was that the extra light disturbs the animal's hormonal balance and triggers off the next stage in the ovulation cycle.  Or something like that.

But this doesn't necessarily apply to humans - other factors change things.

Then there's tides.

[woolybanana]

Why shouldn't this apply to humans, they are just animals?

Anyway, My stubble always grows twice as fast and long round the full moon, though am not tempted to howl.

Norman's teeth get very marked points, or so he says!

[YCCMB]

Patf: if you google, it appears that experiments have been done, but the sample group and duration of the study was too small to be conclusive. They (the participants) were affected by the moon, but a longer and more rigid study has been deemed too expensive.

I don't really buy into the "extra light" idea, as in my bedroom in France it's pretty difficult to even determine when there's daylight outside once the shutters are closed.

[mint]

Same in our bedroom; there are shutters not only for the windows but for the doors as well.  I have often thought that if nuclear war broke out, we'd only know about it when we get up the following morning to devastation.

[Gardengirl]

That sounds like us the morning after the referendum, Mint!