Does your behaviour change during a full moon??

I work a psychiatric hospital, and I observe a difference in my patients during a full moon. They either start acting in in an exaggerated form of their condition (excessive OCD behaviors, more paranoia) or they get violent. It's strange, but it happens.

Can the Full Moon

Affect Human Behavior?

by John Townley

For thousands of years it has been believed that the fortunes of men and women move in cycles. The ancients depicted the concept as the great Wheel of Fortune, eternally turning and spilling off the winners on top while bearing up the wretches beneath and giving them their time in the limelight before they, too, get dumped. The trouble was that no one knew for sure what powered that wheel or exactly what speed it was turning for any given individual. People knew their days were numbered, but they didn’t know the number.

Until recently the situation hasn’t improved much. For hundreds of years we have known that it is the regular and predictable cycles of the moon and sun that regulate the ocean’s tides, but the tides in the affairs of humans have not been so easily forecast. It was almost as if they moved erratically of their own accord, unmotivated by outside forces.

The extensive cycle research of the past thirty years has proved otherwise. It has established numerous links between regularly occurring human behavior and external natural cycles ranging from weather and solar radiation to phases of the moon and planetary cycles. Here are some dramatic examples.

MURDER TIDES

At the University of Miami, psychologist Arnold Lieber and his colleagues decided to test the old belief of full-moon “lunacy” which most scientists had written off as an old wives’ tale. The researchers collected data on homicide in Dade County (Miami) over a period of 15 years — 1,887 murders, to be exact. When they matched the incidence of homicide with the phases of the moon, they found, much to their surprise, that the two rose and fell together, almost infallibly, for the entire 15 years! As the full or the new moon approached, the murder rate rose sharply; it distinctly declined during the first and last quarters of the moon.

To find out whether this was just a statistical fluke, the researchers repeated the experiment using murder data from Cuyahoga County in Ohio (Cleveland). Again, the statistics showed that more murders do indeed occur at the full and new moons.

Dr. Lieber and his colleagues shouldn’t have been so surprised. An earlier report by the American Institute of Medical Climatology to the Philadelphia Police Department entitled “The Effect of the Full Moon on Human Behavior” found similar results. That report showed that the full moon marks a monthly peak in various kinds of psychotically oriented crimes such as murder, arson, dangerous driving, and kleptomania. People do seem to get a little bit crazier about that time of the month.

That’s something most police and hospital workers have known for a long time. Indeed, back in eighteenth-century England, a murderer could plead “lunacy” if the crime was committed during the full moon and get a lighter sentence as a result. Scientists, however, like to have a hard physical model to explain their discoveries, and so far there isn’t a fully accepted one. Dr. Lieber speculates that perhaps the human body, which, like the surface of the earth, is composed of almost 80 percent water, experiences some kind of “biological tides” that affect the emotions. When a person is already on psychologically shaky ground, such a biological tide can push him or her over the edge.

Well, the bright blinding light from a full moon will certainly make most astronomers a bit cranky. One can also imagine, that long ago, when the night was lit only by candle, oil lamp, and torch light, that the appearance of a full moon and a brightly lit night, could materially change the behavior of the community. Imagine being able to hunt, harvest, or play, during a part of the day which is normally too dark for such things.

But, we live in an artificially lit world; and whatever influence the Moon may have once had over our nocturnal activities is now much less. Although, you should always beware of cranky astronomers.

The key concept here involves the word "seems." Despite the unscientific assertions of nurses and police officers as well as a few teachers, there is no relationship between lunar phases and human behavior or mood.

Several studies were done back in the 70s and they got a lot of people believing this. But when they were examined closely, they were shown to be extremely sloppy and in some cases, outright fraudulent. They were made for public consumption through the popular media, not scientific peer review. Most people are unaware of the extreme difference in the reliability of these two methods.

Careful, properly conducted studies have been done for a number of different effects and none of them shows any correlation. This is a textbook example of self-confirming bias: an unintentional counting of the "hits" and the ignoring of the "misses." You will remember when there was some problem during the full moon because you are looking for it. But if something weird or disturbing happens on some other phase of the moon, one will attribute it to non-lunar causes. And if nothing notable happens on the full moon, one will either not notice that it was full or will forget that it was. This kind of selective omission or inclusion of data invariably leads to erroneous conclusions.

Most people realize that there is usually only one day in a month which has a full moon, but they will call the moon "full" when it is as much as three or four days away from it. This means you're counting the moon full for a whole week of the cycle (1/4) and not one day, (1/29 of the cycle.) This also gives a false sense of coincidence.

Combine these two mis-perceptions and you are virtually assured to believe in something that does not exist. People who claim that statistics support this view of lunar effects, are wrong. They do not. And those who think it might have something to do with personal tidal effects don't understand how tides and gravity work.

Edit: From the post farther up which mentions Lieber. Yes he was one of those crackpots from the 70s. He initially attributed these "influences" to tides. Like I said, tidal effects are inconsequential and he clearly has not done even the most basic research of the physics here. You can read more about the embarrassing history of this kind of bogus research in the Wiki article. Lieber is there. The other references to seemingly credible sources are also bunk.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_effect

I work in the hospitality industry (casino) and I really believe more weirdos come in and more fights happen during the full moon. The word lunacy is derived from this theory. This is a link to an interesting article about this subject.

http://www.lifeinthefastlane.ca/lunar-behavior-dur...

Perhaps you can see less of your boyfriend during this time if you are both so affected, but don't forget that it takes two people to make a fight. or apply the theory forewarned, forearmed meaning that if you are prepared for it you may be able to do something about it.

No, and actually I don't even look at the moon at all!!! But it's might be just coincidents that human do horrible things at full moon... I believe it's all a myth and only a make believe in the roman times or any other time :p

P.S - I'm only at grade 5:p

Yes, especially if it's also "that time of the month" we're mostly water so it's not that far fetched to assume we are affected by lunar cycles, especially women. I know my temper is worse "that time of the month" and MUCH worse when I am PMS'ing during a full moon.

Cats don't "change" their behavior. I've heard the same myth about human's but studies do not bare this out.

may be there is relation between some natural phenomenon and animals because they are small souls but man has a large spirit and heart where god can stay inside man .then man never affected by anything even war or disease or anything

apparently crime ratings are higher during full moon, and the police put out more patrols. the ambulance crews also have their busiest nights during full moons.