Tired? Maybe its Moon Madness!

            Since the dawn of humanity, we have immortalized the moon. We've assigned it genders, names, meanings, and emotions. We've prayed to it, worshipped it, romanticized it. Many of us base our ritual work, and even our spiritual lives around the moon and its cycles. Historically we've blamed any number of mental health issues on the full moon, and even now police and hospitals carry an expectation of some pretty crazy cases walking through their doors during that time. 

While I am an amateur moon fanatic, many people I talked to recently (pagan or otherwise) had a few common things to say about how they felt during the first day or two leading up to the full moon through the few days after. One is that they are tired, exhausted, drained of all energy. The other is that they felt anxious, agitated, keyed up and bursting at the seams with the drive to create and then, afterwords, fall into an exhausted sleep.

 How can so many people from different walks of life be feeling the same things? Certainly it could be an suggested notion that is so much a part of our culture that its hard to separate ourselves from it. The earth is 98 percent water, and our bodies are between 55 and 75 percent water, depending on age. The moon is the driving force of the tides for Earths water, imagine what it does to our bodies! Babies are roughly 70-75 percent water. For a fun side bar experiment, track the crying cycles of a baby for a calendar month and see if it follows a cycle. 

Conjecture aside, I decided to dig a little deeper.

Turns out, there is some scientific evidence to validate our "moon madness." According to Michael Hastings, a research scientist at the University of Cambridge who studies circadian rhythms, the effect of the moon on our sleep may have echoes of our evolutionary past. "“If you were a hunter–gatherer on the African savanna, you may want to be out hunting at the full moon,” he says. Lunar connections to sleep disturbances are harder to prove since many environmental factors may mask the effects. There have been a few clinical trials with promising data to support this theory. 

Its easier to conceptualize the lunar cycle impacts on animals, especially marine life. Its a supported fact that the moon drives the breeding cycles for certain kinds fish, and worms as well. According to the most recent study cited in the article, people reported that their quality of sleep was on average 20 percent worse on a full moon than compared to their quality of sleep on a new moon. 

According to a study published in Current Biology, "around the full moon humans get less shut-eye and their slumber is not as deep, even if sleep is restricted to windowless rooms free of environmental and time-based cues—such as those found in a sleep lab." The authors found that during the full moon, and the few days before and after that it takes about five minutes longer to fall asleep, and that  sleep duration is reduced by about 20 minutes. They also reported their slumber was not as deep.

If you look at the classic effects of the moon and its cycles from a spiritual stand point, it makes sense as well. As the moon waxes toward full, we can feel the energy building. Ideas are created, seeds planted, spells worked, with the culmination of the work occurring on the full moon. As the moon wanes again, we are called to cull the non essential, cut the rot, and rest and rejuvenate. The new moon provides an empty slate, and an empty vessel for which we work to refill and complete the cycle. 

So whether you are merely a moon admirer, or a moon devotee, rest assured (ha! see what I did there?) you aren't crazy! You may have been struck with a case of  "Moon Madness."

Here is the article if you are interested- https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/it-must-be-the-moon-tired/