Scientists have figured out whether the phases of the moon affect the behavior of children

An international team of scientists from Canada, USA, Africa and Europe, studied the behavior and sleep of 5,812 children from five continents in an attempt to establish any connection of these factors with the phases of the moon. As a result, scientists found out that there were no “werewolves” among them - moreover, the only factor that could be influenced by the Moon was a slight change in sleep during the full moon.

“We decided that studying children would be more relevant due to the fact that their behavior changes more often, and their need for sleep is greater than among adults,” explains Jean-Philippe Chaput of the Eastern Ontario Research Institute, one of the researchers who participated in the work.

Subjects of children of both sexes came from different families with different incomes, had different age, education, intellectual level, body mass index, and so on. The data was collected for 28 months, and then the results were divided into three parts - the full moon, the new moon and the growing / decreasing moon.
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No clear dependencies of changes in behavior on the phases of the moon have been identified. As for sleep, on a full moon, its duration decreased by an average of 5 minutes (which is 1% of the total sleep).

As a result , scientists have concluded that there is no need to worry about the full moon. No health effects due to reduced sleep by 5 minutes are foreseen. Other factors — genetics, the environment, education, income, and psychological characteristics — have a much greater effect on people's behavior and sleep.

Nevertheless, it is difficult to drop all of folklore and all the evidence that a full moon in some way affects human behavior. For example, British police officers have repeatedly noticed the strange behavior of people during the full moon. Usually at such times, detainees are more prone to conflicts and disputes with police officers.

Another study of the connection of human activity with lunar cycles was conducted by analysts at investment bank Macquarie Securities. 14 leading bank experts studied the dynamics of 32 major stock market indices since 1988. It turned out that the maximum return on investment for four weeks of the lunar cycle falls on the period of changing the lunar month (the last two days of the previous one and the first two days of the new lunar month). “Using data from 1988 on various types of indices, we came to the conclusion that there is a powerful surge in profits at the junction of the lunar months,” the company said in a report.