Good news for fellow stargazers – the month of August 2023 is set to have two supermoons, culminating in a rare “blue moon.”
The phenomenon occurs when the moons are at their closest to Earth, and they’ll happen on the 1st and 31st of August in the UK. The first is set to peak at a very reasonable 7:31 PM, while the later “blue moon” on the 31st is later, but also closer and brighter.
We’ve written about how to take decent pics of the beautiful phenomena, but what about how the supermoons affect our sleep? After all, reports of disturbed sleep and altered moods around the full moon go back centuries. So what about this biggest full moon of them all?
We thought we’d look into how (and if) the super-bright celestial events can affect your mood and sleep.
Some studies suggest supermoons can make your sleep worse
The first study only had 33 participants, which is likely to have limited its accuracy. Still, a 2013 study did find that participants took five minutes longer to fall asleep, had 20 minutes less sleep overall, and suffered a 30% loss of deep sleep during the full moon.
A later study in 2021 from the University of Washington, which had 98 participants, found that “moonlight likely stimulated nocturnal activity and inhibited sleep”. The participants lived in various settings, with different levels of urbanisation. They discovered that across all locations, “sleep starts later and is shorter on the nights before the full moon when moonlight is available during the hours following dusk.”
Yet another 2014 study, which examined 47 volunteers, found that “total sleep time decreases by 25 minutes and cortical reactivity to environmental stimuli during sleep increases around full moon, and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep latency lengthens by 30 minutes around new moon.”
Scientists aren’t exactly sure why the moon might affect people’s sleep. After all, while you might think it has something to do with the extra light, moonlight only has about 7% the strength of sunlight – and sleep deprivation has been recorded under cloudy conditions and with shut curtains.
Another theory, that the gravitational pull of the moon has its effect on the water in our bodies, seems unlikely. After all, “Researchers estimate that the impact of lunar tides on a person measures less than one-millionth of the size of an atom.”
Whatever the reason, though, if you’re struggling to catch some Zzzs at the moment, remember – it’s the moon’s fault, not your love of watching Netflix into the early hours.