Full Moon Syndrome: Fact or Fiction

For years, we (in the nursing profession) have identified an increase in full moon personality changes among our patients and co-workers. None of them for the better! Yet research does not support our theory that the crazy come out to play during the days before and after a full moon!

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Wikapedia 2012 said:
"The lunar effect is the theory that there is correlation between specific stages of the Earth's lunar cycle and deviant behavior in human beings that cannot simply be explained by variation in light levels. There is no good reason to expect this to be the case, and in spite of numerous studies, no significant lunar effect on human behaviour has been established."

When it appears crazy at work, I always ask "is it a full moon tonight?" and 9 times out of 10 a full moon is close.

Even my pets seem to have more mad moments of charging around the house.

I know personally that I feel that I am less tolerant during that period of the month, I feel anger more quickly and I put things out of perspective.

Is this due to the moon you might ask, or is it due to a stressful job as a manager?

All I know is that all the staff seems to have multiple communications issues with each other, which they cannot sort out alone. More complaints about co-workers 'easier assignments' or they hate the schedule they are working.

Do Call Off's increase? Not that I noticed but we could always start monitoring the full moon and sickness. ;)

I have personally seen an increase in attempted suicide attempts.

Increase in pain tolerance for patients.

More patients coming in for detox ?

When I was a midwife we expected more women going into labor round this time.

Or are they all old wives tales?

Think about where you work, have you noticed an increase in the abnormal around the moon cycle or is craziness around all the time?

Those of you who work in the ER, you must have some good examples of 'full moon madness'. ?

Specializes in pediatrics.

Well, interestingly, my daughter had grand mal seizures - uncontrolled no matter the medication or surgical procedure we had tried. I started to notice that her seizures were most often affiliated with the full moon. Day before, day of, or day after the FM were days when typically her seizures would hit. I mentioned this to her FP who didn't really believe me, but her neurosurgeon certainly did! He said that kids like my daughter with hydrocephalus as an underlying condition, most certainly seem to have more seizure activity around the full moon. He said that while he worked at a pediatric hospital, he had seen kids with seizures come in much more frequently around the full moon. His theory was, that if the full moon can affect the tide, it certainly could affect the the fluid balance in someone's brain, thereby causing seizures.

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Specializes in NICU.

In my experience, it hasn't been the amount of patients that was the problem during the full moon, or the degree of sickness. It was the TYPE of patients that came in during the full moon.

I always see more mean, crazy, drunk/drug addict, and stupid people during the full moon than at any other time of the month. LOL

Agreeing with Esme12--after 17 years working at some capacity in health care, I don't need the statistical data. I have hard evidence every month. LOL

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Specializes in ER, progressive care.

From my experience, the craziness that ensues with a full moon happens about three to four days before the actual full moon and also a day after. Most of the time working I don't notice a difference if I work on the night of a full moon.

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I'm assuming these studies weren't done by a night shift nurse in LTC!

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Specializes in Gerontology, Med surg, Home Health.

Where do you think the word lunatic comes from????

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Specializes in cardiac CVRU/ICU/cardiac rehab/case management.

Hmmm....I really don't know, Yet, If the word lunatic has its origin in the moon itself (lunar ) then maybe it merits consideration.

We used to buy a cake every Friday in CVRU and called it Freaky Friday . Hey, any excuse, right?

Well, Collectively we agreed to "ban " Freaky Friday, because for several Friday's in a row pt kept crashing. Not just one but in a huge chain like reaction.

Was there any correlation? Yeah, I think so , simply because we believed in it .It really doesn't matter if it is fact or fiction all that matters is the belief to make it so. I am wondering is that any different from a pt who "believes " he will be well and therefore succeeds despite his dismal prognosis .

So stretching us all a little.....if Freaky Friday ,or full moons can manifest the result we expect....perhaps we are more powerful than we know?

Or, we can look agree with science and say there is no correlation, that the patient's are mad every day, (but by some grace of God we only catch on to this once a month.) Personally I'm going with I believe in the full moon theory because if I don't then it means the lunatics are running the asylum EVERYday and there isn't enough cake in the world to "wake me up " to that truth.

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Specializes in Nurse Leader specializing in Labor & Delivery.

It's called "confirmation bias"

Here's a good article about it

Howling and Growling at the Full Moon

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Specializes in Med-Surg.

I taught school for 19 years, and definitely there is something to full moon behavior in the classroom. Don't know about nursing yet because I am just starting out, but I would believe it. Bet police think there is more activity around the full moon too.

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Specializes in LPN.
DebblesRN said:
In my experience, it hasn't been the amount of patients that was the problem during the full moon, or the degree of sickness. It was the TYPE of patients that came in during the full moon.

I always see more mean, crazy, drunk/drug addict, and stupid people during the full moon than at any other time of the month. LOL

Agreeing with Esme12--after 17 years working at some capacity in health care, I don't need the statistical data. I have hard evidence every month. LOL

Sorry, you don't have "hard evidence" of these things. This is still opinion. You can't measure "mean, crazy, and stupid people", though someone could do a study on drunks and drug addicts. But no real study has ever supported the idea that the moon affects people's behavior.

I'm too much into astronomy to let this kind of thing pass. It bothers me when educated people believe stuff like this.

But speaking of legends, some say its the new moon or "dark of the moon", not the full moon, that causes people's behavior to be unpredictable. It's all in which stories you choose to believe.

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Specializes in Psych.

Some of my most peaceful evenings in the psych hospital are during a full moon. When all heck is breaking loose, I never have time to look out the window.

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wooh said:
Here is where people start talking about how smart they are, because we all just have a selective memory, so we remember crazy on full moons/Friday the 13th/after someone says the Q-word (quiet) but there's no real difference.

Like I said, here is where people come and show off their smarts.

Come on confirmation bias people, does it hurt ANYONE to have fun with this? Just because we're educated professionals, it doesn't mean we have to be boring too.

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wooh said:
Come on confirmation bias people, does it hurt ANYONE to have fun with this? Just because we're educated professionals, it doesn't mean we have to be boring too.

Agreed!

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