Full moon can shorten children's sleep a little

​Toronto: While the full moon does not make kids hyperactive - as commonly believed - it may decrease their sleep time by five minutes on an average, says a study.

However, the clinical implication of sleeping five minutes less during full moon does not represent a considerable threat to health, the researchers pointed out.

"Overall, I think we should not be worried about the full moon. Our behaviours are largely influenced by many other factors like genes, education, income and psychosocial aspects rather than by gravitational forces," said one of the researchers, Jean-Philippe Chaput from the Eastern Ontario Research Institute in Canada.

To explore whether lunar phases somehow do affect humans, the international group of researchers studied children to see if their sleeping patterns changed or if there were any differences in their daily activities.

"We considered that performing this research on children would be particularly more relevant because they are more amenable to behaviour changes than adults and their sleep needs are greater than adults," Chaput explained.