How to Defeat Jet Lag Once and For All

Photo credit: leoplus

The sluggishness, the twinkling stars in your vision, the flying pink elephants. You may have jet lag. If it’s something you dread, or even if it doesn’t bother you, many long-distance travelers consider it a bane to their traveling lifestyle.

The worst part about jet lag is, because so many factors affect its severity, you never know how bad you’ll get it. Some will defend their jet lag-free reputation, some will admit to being steamrolled by it for days or even weeks after the fact, but certainly no one can deny it exists. They’ve probably been there before.

So how do you throw this sleepy insomniac’s train off its inevitable tracks? Well, to those of you confounded by jet lag, you can feel a little better knowing it’s a recognized sleep disorder in the medical community and many studies have been done to understand it. Dr. Robert Sack has been working on the condition for some time. His definition of jet lag from a article in the New England Journal of Medicine is “a disorder that results from crossing time zones too rapidly for the circadian clock to keep pace.” Circadian rhythm is our brain’s way of telling us, by administering chemicals, when we should be awake and when we should be dozing, usually tied in with the rise and fall of the sun.

Unfortunately for long haul travelers this inner clock is not quick to reset, certainly not as quick as a plane travels, and when multiple time zones are crossed our natural cycle is sent toward the wackadoo, worsened by the general fatigue of traveling. Unfortunately, jet lag will persist until the circadian cycle is realigned. How fast it realigns, however, is up to you.

So why then does it affect some people and not others? Well, since everyone has circadian cycles, it affects everyone (if they say it doesn’t, they’re lying) but some people will avoid the harsher tolls by doing things that allow for quicker readjustment. Dr Sack says that according to studies how long you’ve been awake doesn’t affect jet lag, but more, your exposure to light, since light levels are the key component to circadian cycles.

Probably the sole reason why people become jet lagged is because of their unplanned exposure to light or darkness when they arrive. The body simply doesn’t know whether to be asleep or awake. Therefore, a simple way to combat the effect is to seek additional exposure to light in the morning after eastward travel and in the evening after westward travel. As an alternative, you can wear sunglasses to lessen the light effect, which will not only help your jet lag but also make you look cool when you arrive in Europe.

Here are the things that contribute to jet lag severity:

• Number of time zones crossed: The farther you travel eastward or westward, the harder it will be to realign with the local time.
• Direction of travel: The body has an easier time lengthening the day than shortening it, therefore most people have a harder time readjusting to east/west travel, as opposed to west/east.
• Sleep loss during travel: Especially problematic for overnight flights when you have difficulty sleeping.
• Engagement with your new time zone: Quick adjustment to the local day/night cycle is of utmost importance to defeating jet lag.
• Personal tolerance: Of course everyone’s bodies and cycles are different, so the rules are not steadfast. It’s been discovered that tolerance to jet lag decreases with age. Sorry about that.

To defeat jet lag once and for all read on:

Schedule your bedtime well

Probably the best way to minimize jet lag is to reschedule your sleeping-waking pattern after you arrive staying on home-time for a day or two. If you can’t do this (because you actually want to enjoy your new place), try to adjust your bedtime 1 or 2 hours toward the destination time BEFORE YOU LEAVE. It may be tough to organize your pre-trip life to allow for this, but your future self will no doubt love you for it.

Thai Red Bull

Use Caffeine

Drinking coffee or caffeinated beverages will certainly help get and keep you alert when feeling jet lag. The adverse affects are mainly insomnia (when all you want to do is sleep). How your body reacts to caffeine should determine how much you have.

Drink up the liquids!

Be sure to hydrate—as much as you can. And then drink some more. Drink lots of water, juices or sports drinks to encourage bodily recovery. Coffee and alcohol promotes dehydration and should be avoided during the flight.

Consider a sleeping pill

This will help to prevent sleep loss, an agent of jet lag, on the flight. Please do not mix sleeping pills with alcohol.

Take a nap after you arrive

But keep it short (20-30 minutes). You don’t want to undermine your normal nighttime sleep pattern.

Use Melatonin

Melatonin, a natural hormone your body administers to help regulate sleep, is connected with the circadian cycle of day and night. The use of melatonin to counteract jet lag, not uncontroversially, has been shown to have a desirable effect on the amount of it you feel. Your dose must be correctly timed to get the best result, which makes it very difficult to use correctly. Knowing exactly when to take it can be tricky since most trips are of different lengths, in different directions, to different time zones, at different times of day, especially if you’re on a multi-stop or round the world trip.

If you take melatonin as a darkness signal you may be able to maximize its effect, in other words, take it to tell your body when to go to sleep, like a sleep aide. Your body works with melatonin in very straightforward and organic ways so it must be timed perfectly to have any effect on jet lag. Also, it can only adjust your clock by a few hours so if your flight is longer than that, it won’t wipe out jet lag altogether. Still, after the second day of use, you should feel great.

Melatonin can be purchased in the US as a nutritional supplement but is hasn’t been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, so if this is something you’re interested in trying, please use it with caution. Something else to keep in mind: studies of melatonin and its effective value are ongoing and have not been ultimately proven. A recent study has in fact shown it to worsen the effect of jet lag.

For more info on melatonin read this website devoted to it.

Power through it

By staying active when you arrive and with the previous steps you can bring your body back to its normal alertness by simply causing your body to forget to jet lag. Increased amounts of activity have been known to help substantially.

This article from Men’s Journal has some celebrity takes on how they defeat jet lag. Because celebrity advice is the best kind of advice.

And finally, a full on website for further reading on how to combat this deadly (ok, non-deadly) menace!

Reprinted with permission from the AirTreks Travel Blog