Why a Full Moon Can Disrupt Your Sleep, According to Science

“What we think is that when our ancestors were hunting and gathering, it was very adaptive to extend the end of the day,” says Dr. de la Iglesia. The extra light from a nearly full moon at dusk would give them more time to find food before darkness fell – so why wouldn’t they, like Dr. de la Iglesia states, don’t evolve to stay up later on those nights? While we may not be as dependent on natural light now, he notes that, evolutionarily speaking, our bodies are still able to delay sleep before a full moon.

That’s probably true even if you can’t see the moon’s light (whether it’s shrouded in clouds or light pollution or just a great blackout curtain). One hypothesis is that our bodies can sense the greater gravitational pull of the full moon, just like the oceans – we are made mostly of water, after all.

But there are a few limitations to that theory. For starters, “the tidal effect on humans is estimated to be extremely small,” says Brandon Peters, MD, a board-certified neurologist, sleep medicine specialist, and author of The sleep apnea hypothesis. And the moon’s gravity is about the same during a full or new moon, so you would expect similar effects in both phases, adds Dr. Peters added.

Perhaps a more likely explanation involves other changes that occur alongside the shift in gravity of a full moon, says Dr. de la Iglesia, such as variations in the Earth’s magnetic field, an energetic shield that protects us from solar winds and other space weather. Although experts don’t know exactly how, research suggests that certain geomagnetic shifts can affect your cardiovascular system or even change your melatonin levels, disrupting your sleep.

It is also possible that a number of biological and evolutionary ties to the moon over time have led to us having an approximatelyMoon- rhythm – similar to a circadian rhythm, but oriented around the approximately month-long lunar cycle, versus a single day. So just as you get sleepy at night and feel more awake as the morning progresses thanks to your internal 24-hour clock, experts theorize that your body may also become more active at night (or less naturally inclined to sleep) around a full Moon. compared to other phases during the month, says Dr. Cajoching.

What to do if you have trouble sleeping well around the full moon

The moon continues to moonshine, but that doesn’t mean you’re doomed to restless nights as the moon approaches full status.

If you find yourself going to bed on those days just to toss and turn, Dr. Peters recommends temporarily postponing your bedtime by, for example, 30 or 45 minutes (while keeping the wake-up time consistent). “By reducing your total time in bed, you build a stronger sleep drive, making it easier to fall asleep,” he says. Also try to get 15 to 30 minutes of sunlight every day after waking up, he adds, to keep your circadian rhythm going as usual.