Sleep[/caption]Marcy Bennett----Professor Christian Cajochen’s laboratory is the site of recent research that indicates some value for astrology to help people with sleep. Prof. Cajochen is a psychiatrist studies circadian rhythms, and some of his colleagues mentioned they slept less well when the moon was full. But was this true?
Prof. Cajochen set out to prove his associates wrong, but ended up admitting, “To my surprise, I couldn’t” as in fact it seems sleep patterns are impacted by the full moon.
But the professor was initially reluctant to face the jokes about astrology and sleep, so it took him several years to publish his results, indicating how researchers personal concerns and bias can sometimes influence when and if research will be published.
Scientists don’t know for sure why the full moon influences sleep the way it does. Some believe it has to do with opposition effect of the son and moon at different times. Others think the full moon opposition may come at the same time as increased tension or stress, related to the sun’s rays.
Some of this information reinforces what scientists already know about sleep and what aids or detracts from it. For example light affects sleep. Being exposed to light late in the evening will delay sleep. Light influences the timing of our internal clocks and regulates the time to sleep.
And in good humor, some of that notion that the spirits are awake at the full moon might not be put to sleep, given the factor of light keeping a person from sleeping and the pull of the moon on the body’s clock.
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Marcy Bennett is interested in both astrology and health and found this information recently and thought it interesting and potentially helpful. As a freelance writer she looks particularly for unique information about health.
