Mental health and the moon

WhiteWalls

A mate of mine told me that the moon affects people with mental disabilities.. He was genuinely serious! Anybody ever hear of this before?

Sir Arthur Daley

Heard of it but dont have a link.

Smiles35

lunacy

Firewalkwithme

WhiteWalls wrote: »

A mate of mine told me that the moon affects people with mental disabilities.. He was genuinely serious! Anybody ever hear of this before?

You're nuts.

foggy_lad

Noblong wrote: »

lunacy

lunarcy

Albertofrog

I've worked in A&E around the full moon.
It does!
Sure you'll have to be a lunatic to think otherwise 😉

guitarzero

Yep, it's what I normally do when I freak out and do regrettable sh*t, blame the moon.

Sir Arthur Daley

The moon disproportionally affects the cerabal cortex.

Gyalist

A quick search of the internet on the "lunar effect" will sort you out.

The Latin word for moon - luna - is also the root for lunatic.

WhiteWalls

There is a grand moon out tonight

Frito

Yeah I've heard of this. Biological tides theory I think it's called, where because the moon has a gravitational pull on large bodies of water it could have some effect on the water in our bodies. But as a theory it's widely criticised. There's little evidence for lunar effect in mental health save a confirmation bias.

There is a set of behaviours known as sun-downing that occur frequently in people with dementia. Iirc this is more to do with hormonal interruptions of the circadian rhythym that manifest as confusion, agitation etc.

--LOS--

I'll let Neil deGrasse take that one....

On crazy behavior associated with a full Moon:

People say, Oh they acted crazy, the Moon pulls the tides, the tides are made of water, the human body is mostly water, the Moon must affect the human body. (...) You can ask the question, what is the tidal force of the Moon on your cranium? (...) Because if that were severe, it could be messing with you, right? So you do the calculation, and it turns out, if you were one of these people who sleep with a lot of pillows, and one of the pillows is kind of leaning on your head overnight, the pressure from that pillow on your head is a trillion times greater than the tidal force of the Moon across your cranium. But nobody talks about the effects of down pillows on your behavior the next day.

jill_valentine

Statistically I don't think it's something that shows up, but I know a lot of emergency worker first responder types, and they all swear it's true.

The suggestion an old lecturer of mine had was that it's simply easier to get up to divilment on a bright night.

fizzypish

I have been known to go nuts if I drink during a full moon.

Balmed Out

I spent a night in Dublin airport unfortunately sitting next to some guy called Bonzai, he had all sorts of newspaper stories about him and had them in a scrap book. Anyhow he banged on about this all night despite me never arguing the fact. He was positive that it was especially true of Irish people.

Load of crap

AtomicHorror

jill_valentine wrote: »

Statistically I don't think it's something that shows up, but I know a lot of emergency worker first responder types, and they all swear it's true.

Because they're human and humans do this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

tigger123

T'is a myth.

Sinister Kid

Albertofrog wrote: »

I've worked in A&E around the full moon.
It does!
Sure you'll have to be a lunatic to think otherwise 😉

My mother works in a residential unit for kids with high support needs, all the staff will swear the kids go extra troublesome during the full moon.

I have noticed my dog goes a bit mad too...

Timmyctc

--LOS-- wrote: »

I'll let Neil deGrasse take that one....

Two points on that. I often complain about my pillows cause it makes me cranky **** when it leaves me with an ache in my neck the next day :P

Secondly. Neil de Grasse Tyson annoys the absolute **** out of me :pac:

Badly Drunk Boy

A lot of it is just psychological. Stuff is getting a bit frenetic, A&E is like a madhouse, "I acted like a lunatic after a load of beer last night". Wait...wasn't there a full moon last night? That must have been the reason for all that stuff!!!

ShagNastii

My dad worked for the coastguard most of his career so he had to deal with suicidal bridge jumpers often. He said he didn’t believe it to be coincidence that it happened an awful lot more when a full moon occurred.

The Backwards Man

Scientists can stick their confirmation bias up their holes. Here in the real world, the moon has an effect.

AtomicHorror

The Backwards Man wrote: »

Scientists can stick their confirmation bias up their holes. Here in the real world, the moon had an effect.

Yeah those scientists and their checking to see if stuff actually happens so we can make decisions based on objective evidence instead of a bunch of stories people swear by.

**** them, right?

endacl

Albertofrog wrote: »

I've worked in A&E around the full moon.
It does!
Sure you'll have to be a lunatic to think otherwise 😉

Confirmation bias.

Akrasia

ShagNastii wrote: »

My dad worked for the coastguard most of his career so he had to deal with suicidal bridge jumpers often. He said he didn’t believe it to be coincidence that it happened an awful lot more when a full moon occurred.

First of all, did he colate the data to prove that there were actually more calls on a full moon?

Secondly, what did he believe was the cause if it wasn't a coincidence?

thirdly, when people say 'it's a full moon' do they mean an actual full moon, or any night when the moon looked like it was full?

http://www.moonconnection.com/moon_phases_calendar.phtml
between the 4th and the 13th of this month, the moon has been significantly more than half 'full'. Between the 6th and the 11th, the moon would have looked like it was full to the casual observer.

That's a significant portion of the month when unusual events could be linked to the moon via confirmation bias.

The Backwards Man

AtomicHorror wrote: »

Yeah those scientists and their checking to see if stuff actually happens so we can make decisions based on objective evidence instead of a bunch of stories people swear by.

**** them, right?

Exactly. All they do is 'gather evidence' and 'deduce' and 'objectify'. They don't have any ideas about what's going on, they are just surmising like the rest of us.

Blackhorse Slim

The Backwards Man wrote: »

Scientists can stick their confirmation bias up their holes. Here in the real world, the moon has an effect.

You have it backwards, man

ShagNastii

Akrasia wrote: »

First of all, did he colate the data to prove that there were actually more calls on a full moon?

Secondly, what did he believe was the cause if it wasn't a coincidence?

thirdly, when people say 'it's a full moon' do they mean an actual full moon, or any night when the moon looked like it was full?

http://www.moonconnection.com/moon_phases_calendar.phtml
between the 4th and the 13th of this month, the moon has been significantly more than half 'full'. Between the 6th and the 11th, the moon would have looked like it was full to the casual observer.

That's a significant portion of the month when unusual events could be linked to the moon via confirmation bias.

Jaysus I didn’t say he conducted an experiment. I’d imagine, leaving the house he looked to the sky and if there was a big white full faced moon looking back at him he probably said to himself “going by pass experiences we’ll surely be dealing with a few lunatics tonight”.

GLaDOS

Did a quick search and this paper suggests a correlation between schizophrenia patients and their condition deteriorating around the full moon. Don't have access to the full paper though.

Cianmcliam

Surely all a full moon is is a moon with the fully lit face pointing straight at us. It's not going to be closer or further or in any way different from any other night just because we're looking at the lit face. The only effect then could be the extra light levels at night which would be fairly insignificant if you are indoors or there is street lighting. My vote is it's a myth.

Hoop66

Do people who think that full moon affects behaviour think that the moon is somehow heavier when there's more light shining on it?


EDIT: Great minds!