Are you a lunatic? (Affected by the moon...not crazy!) It has the power to raise/lower the ocean's tide--do you believe it influences brain chemicals?
by 
CDaws
ANSWERS: 3
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There's no evidence that it does -- despite the origins of the word lunatic. A full moon triggers an innate behavior in wolves, but that's not a direct effect of the heavenly body on brain chemistry, it's from the wolf seeing the moon and processing the image in its brain. Tidal forces are powerful on a large scale but far too weak to actually affect brain chemistry. Note also that if tidal forces affected people's behavior, we would see cycles lasting once or twice a day (like the tides) as well as once or twice every full/new moon when sun and moon are aligned. Urban legends about the moon's effects on human behavior (for example, more pregnant women going into labor during a full moon) have been disproved by actual statistics. There is no such effect. One might speculate that if a delusional individual believed he or she was affected by the moon in a certain way, then the moon might trigger a characteristic behavior, i.e., 'self-fulfilling prophecy'.
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100% it influences me. It causes strong mood swings around full and new moons, took me ages to make the link until I started keeping a diary for about 6 months about 15 years ago because I was thinking of having therapy (chemical or counseling) to improve happiness. I eventually noticed a little symbol in my diary which I had not bothered with before - it was the moon phase. It was a direct match!!!!!!!! Gulp! I'm an R+D aerospace engineer - that weird stuff's not supposed to exist - but it surely does! Over the years I tried to figure out the cause. It's not looking at it because my mood swings whether I can see it or not. In fact I sometimes get caught out in persistently cloudy weather with a new mood bad mood which I cannot attribute to anything. My best guess is gravity or radiation effects but beyond that I don't know.
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There's a much bigger wikianswers thread on this - switching. http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Can_mood_swings_be_connected_to_the_moon_phases
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