Does the full moon phase affect your sleep? What about the cycles of the moon? Many disorders seem to follow the phases of the moon. When the moon is full, some people may suffer from insomnia, nightmares, strange dreams, and some people even sleepwalk. A most interesting fact that some people sleep better when the moon is full, but its brightness falls on their faces.

Numerous studies have tried to find lunar effects. Reuters reports that researchers with the Austrian Society for Sleep Medicine and Sleep Research examined the sleep patterns of 391 people in several European countries. About half of the subjects had sleep disorders, but no one knew that researchers were interested in the effect of the moon. “When I take care of patients with sleep problems, so many say that the full moon stopped them (from) sleeping, even I was expecting some small difference to appear in the study,” Gerhardt Kloesch, psychologist University of Vienna, which led to the current research, told Reuters.

In fact, only 8 percent of those surveyed had problems sleeping while there was a full moon, against 25 percent who said they had a night’s sleep particularly well during the full moon.

Full moon or not, it is important to get the right amount of sleep each night. If you sleep too little or too much, you’re in a higher risk for a heart attack. In a study by independent research, doctors at the Brigham and Women’s in Boston have found that women who have an imbalance of sleep, ie, have the capacity for five or fewer hours per night or nine or more, are at increased risk heart disease than those who sleep eight hours every night. Why? Not sure, especially for those who sleep too much. Reuter’s agency reports that while the study included 121 700 nurse that began in 1976; the results may apply to men too.