Sunday 26 August 2012

Lunacy

While there is no direct evidence that shows conclusively the Moon is able to affect our behaviour or sleep patterns I always seem to have the worst nights sleep on the approach to a full Moon.

Is this because the weather changes? Is it that I notice my sleep being disrupted more at these times? Or is it that the Moon has some effect on my sleep?

The answer is probably somewhere in the middle of all of those. To be honest looking at sleep involves lots of different variables. How much exercise have I had at that point, how much alcohol have I consumed, am I ill or coming down with an illness. However the idea that the Moon somehow affects my sleep is too interesting not to investigate further - and yes I am aware I have already proved I am a 'busy' sleeper http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCsXWbh9cfI&feature=g-all-u .

So the question is simple on the evening of 24/08/12 how was your nights sleep? Ignoring all other potential variables and ignoring where in the country you were during the night on a scale of 1 (very poor) to 5 (very good) how well did you sleep?

From the 44 people who responded I have this data...


While the sample size is not very big and the results not conclusive it has piqued my interest into this topic.

If I manage to have a statistically significant sample number - I am thinking over 100 people, then I should be able to draw some half decent conclusions. If I have a larger sample number I think that individual factors should be minimised - e.g. baby crying, thunderstorms etc. I am also hoping that if I sample at different phases of the Moon I might be able to get some more robust data. 

So the plan is the following;

  1. Rather than talk about how well you slept I will change it to how well compared to normal 1 being much worse, 3 being like normal, 5 being much better.
  2. I will request sample's at 3 intervals during the Lunar cycle - new Moon, half Moon (as above) and full Moon.
  3. I will run the experiment over the course of several months, this way I should be able to build up a picture of the effect (if any) over time. It will also be interesting to see if there is any effect if the Moon is larger or smaller.
As ever this is all preliminary work. Hopefully I will be able to run this as a simple experiment. Though knowing me I will probably find someway to make it horribly complicated...

No comments:

Post a Comment