Does the Moon Affect Our Lives?
For centuries, people have believed that the moon shapes many areas of life on earth. Many traditions hold that the moon’s phases play a part in how plants grow, how animals behave, and even how people feel and act. While research has dismissed some long-held ideas, others still hold on. What can we learn from the evidence?
Many gardeners are sure that the moon’s phases affect when to plant or harvest crops. They check calendars and almanacs to plan the best time to sow seeds, fertilise the soil, bottle wine or preserve fruit. They worry that if they get the timing wrong, the results will suffer. Some gardening guides advise, “Pick fresh vegetables during the waxing moon and those for storing during the waning moon.” Yet scientific proof for this advice is still in question.
Some research links plant growth to lunar cycles. Still, most scientists remain cautious. Lunar rhythms often shift, can be hard to measure, and don’t show strong effects. Because of this, scientists struggle to repeat these trials and confirm their results.
On the other hand, some lunar effects are clear. Many studies have found that the feeding, movement, and breeding patterns of a range of living things match the tides. The ocean tides themselves are directly controlled by the moon’s gravity.
Some argue that if the moon can move oceans, it should influence people as well, since the human body is mostly water. There are also claims about how the moon’s phases might relate to mental health, birth rates, or the menstrual cycle, which lasts about the same time as a month.
Experts in psychiatry, psychology, and women’s health have looked closely at these ideas. Their results vary. Some see small links between lunar cycles and human behaviour, but others disagree and see no connection at all. They point out that if lunar phases had a strong effect on when babies are born, the link would be clear by now. No theory, whether about moonlight, gravity, magnetism, or other forces, has yet convinced the wider scientific community.
While science shows the moon does influence some life on earth, the full reach of these effects is hard to measure. Our world remains complex, with many unknown systems still at work.
Some theories propose that moonlight, gravity, geomagnetic forces, and electromagnetism may explain possible links between the moon and human biology.
