Woke Up Cranky Today? You Can Blame The Super Blue Blood Moon For That!

By Nur M. Nazri  •  01 Feb 2018 in Features

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Last night, everyone around the world uploaded and shared their snaps of the rare super blue blood moon. Unlike the eclipse, you didn’t need special glasses for this. All you needed was your bright eyes, and your iPhones ready to snap the beautiful moment and share it with your friends with an ‘aesthetically’ worthy caption. However, despite the momentous occasion, some of us woke up today feeling refreshed, whilst others woke up,…a little cranky. But before we start pointing fingers at each other, there’s actually no one to blame for this unusual phenomenon other than the super blue blood moon itself.

Now you might wonder, what does a moon have anything to do with how our moods go by? Well, before we get to that, let us see if you felt any of these during the course of the night…

Did You Feel Any Of These?

If you felt almost everything on the list, Berkeley Professor and ‘sleep diplomat’ Dr Matt Walker has the answers the reasons behind all of our sleep and luna antics…lunatics. During the full moon, we get about an average of 30 minute less deep sleep and during the half moon, that’s the best time where we get our well-rested sleep. Our sleeps basically mirrors the moon phases. Take a look at the chart we’ve made below to best explain how it goes…

When there’s no moon, we find that our sleep is just an ‘okay’ kinda sleep; not too bad, not that great either. But during the half moon, our sleep would be at its peak, and then during the full moon, drastically drops down to the lowest point where we would find ourselves tossing and turning in bed, facing yet another sleepless nights. How could the moon do this to us? Even scientists have yet found the answers to that! But they’ve come up with some pretty convincing theories surrounding this phenomenon.

Dr Walker believes that it has something to do with our hormone melatonin. Melatonin are hormones which helps us sleep, and it’s released at night, because the darkness works as trigger to release the hormones. He also added that over-inundation of light, or deprivation of darkness affects our sleeping patterns. He speculates,

“The full moon is light, so maybe is an evolutionary imprint of the lightness of the full moon to put the brakes on melatonin [and] fool the brain into thinking it’s still day,’ leading to our sleepless nights and mood swings,”

So this case isn’t too different as what happens when the super blue blood moon appears. In fact, it’s actually a lot worse for women during the full moon.

During the full moon, men tend to have REM (rapid eye movement) sleep than women, which is why they’d sleep way better. What happens when a women gets no sleep? Lack of deep sleep equals to lack of REM sleep, which equals to more light, which ends in “I will murder your family”.

Now, onto the kinky part. Although there’s still no concrete proof, but astrologists claims that lunar eclipse has a ‘special’ relation with your libido. So if you were feeling extra saucy last night, or if you’re just alone and horny, you can thank the moon for keeping you up all night. Early Valentine loving for you!

via GIPHY

Alright, we’ve already covered the sleep deprivation and the raging lovemaking hormones, but about hunger? What does the moon have anything to do with our stomach? Well, Dr Walker explains that in our deep sleep, we produce leptin hormone, which keeps us feeling full throughout the night, whereas grelin does the opposite; it keeps us a hungry beast all night long. So you can blame melatonin for that!

via GIPHY

Hope this helps you figure out why some of us had a great night sleep, whilst others just comes in to work tired. This doesn’t apply to EVERYONE, but try asking your friends and colleagues around, and see what they have to say!