It’s not uncommon to have a restless night’s sleep and you’ll find hundreds of songs, books and films all telling you about its causes. Too much stress, coffee or a lack of exercise are known to affect sleep patterns.
But after my dose of exercise and peppermint the other night, it took me longer than usual to fall asleep. Tired and less peaceful the next day, I was soon comforted by a survey revealing that people don’t sleep as easily on nights when there is a full moon. "There was a full moon that night," I thought.
The study on sleep patterns by the Centre for Cronobiology at the University at Basel, saw 33 volunteers locked away from daylight for three and half days. When a full moon was present, they spent 30% less time in deep sleep, slept for 20 minutes less overall and took five minutes longer to fall asleep in the first place.
So how to prepare for the next full moon? Well there’s a new app designed to help people get to sleep faster and stay asleep longer.
Sleep Genius, used by NASA astronauts, has sleep algorithms and scientifically composed music to ease the brain into its natural sleep rhythms whatever the time, environment or moon setting.