Lunar gravity predicts sleep timing

Abstract Biological rhythms are fundamental to survival, synchronizing physiological and behavioural processes like the sleep-wake cycle with predictable environmental cycles like the solar day 1 . However, the extent to which human sleep responds to the lunar cycle remains a subject of controversy, particularly given the ubiquity of artificial light and conflicting reports regarding the influence of moonlight 2–5 . While lunar illuminance has been the primary candidate for such modulation, it fails to account for semilunar rhythms 2,6 or effects observed during the dark new moon phase 2,7 . Here, we show that human and non-human primate sleep timing is synchronized with the gravimetric cycles exerted by the Moon and Sun. By analysing longitudinal actigraphic recordings from urban cohorts in Seattle, indigenous Toba/Qom communities in Argentina, and captive titi monkeys with attenuated access to natural light, we found that sleep onset is consistently delayed around periods of maximal gravitational variations. Crucially, this synchronization aligns with gravimetric peaks regardless of whether they occur at the full or new moon. Furthermore, while human sleep timing is heavily influenced by social constraints and self-selected light exposure, this synchronization persists in titi monkeys, in which these confounds are absent. These findings identify lunar gravity as a distinct environmental cue that may regulate sleep-wake behaviour. Although this regulation may be mediated by other geophysical factors oscillating with lunisolar gravitational tides, the results suggest that the mechanism is an evolutionarily conserved trait that shapes biological timing beyond the influence of light.