Let’s cover a certain concern of travellers whose destination is in a significantly diffent time zone. Don’t underestimate Jet lag because it can turn your honeymoon into a sleepless nightmare and not a good meaning sleepless here.
First things first, what exactly is this bad wolf? Jet lag is your body can’t keeping up with its biologic rhythm that was supposed to be in sync wiht the time zone because you just travelled long distances in short time. So basically it is like your body thinks its morning when it is actually midnight where you travelled to. Because your body adjusted itself to the time zone you live when you change it adaptation to the new zone sometimes can be very troublesome.
Usually jet lag hits you like sleep and eating disorder which adds to the fuel of feeling tired, headaches and performing under mentally and physically. Yeah it is just the thing you need on your travels. Some severe cases are even reported to cause depression but don’t worry not everyone effected as same.
One of the interesting information about Jet lag is that the direction you are travelling has an impact of its effect on you. So if you are travelling to east you are more likely to experience Jet lag symptoms since when you travel to east time zone increases and you end of with living your arrival day as if it was less then 24 hour. Which of course needless to say what throws your body’s biological rythm since it expects 24 hours a day. Though this doesn’t mean you never get Jet lag when you travel to west, but let’s just say that travelling to east makes a better job at confusing your body than travelling to west. Think about it you are making a 10 hour flight to east which at the end you will likely to be somewhere probably having 6-7 hours ahead of your usual time zone. So you took a 16:00 pm flight and when you arrived your body thinks it is 02:00 am where in fact it is 08:00 in your destiantion and people are rising and shining where you just want to fall and sleep.
Travelling north and south doesn’t change time zone so it is highly unlikely to experience Jet lag after your travels even if they were long. So chances of Jet lag is like this; travelling to east>travelling to west>travelling north-south
But there is no certainty because Jet lag doesn’t affect everybody the same. Old people and people with health issues are supposed to be affected more and recent researches even claimed that there are genes which can effect how much we are tolerant to Jet lag but healty young people can be affected just as well…
So what are we going to do? Well to be honest there is no certain cure for it but there are some things you can do the minimize chances of getting it and help your body to adapt easily if not avoid it all.
These are like general good advice you know you should do but conveniently ignore if it doesn’t suit you. It’s your choice of course, but they are not so hard to do so why not give your body a hand? I’ll start with the hardest one 🙂
*Do not consume cafein and alcohol during your travel.
*Drink water
but seriosuly what works best for me and probably for you is
*Try to sleep or not sleep on the flight according to what time you will be arriving
so if I’m landing in the morning I would like to be rested so I try to sleep even though I don’t want to, and try not to sleep if I arrive late so I can sleep when I arrived and adapt to the new zone .
Some people use melatonin to reduce Jet lag effects. That is actually related to body rhthym again. You see melatonin is a hormone your body use to seperate day and night and jet lag occurs mainly because amount of this hormone levels are not in sync with new time zone. But seriously do you really think without a doctor’s help (even with doctor’s help) you can take just the necessary amount to adjust your settings? and why not try less troublesome methods like trying to adjust your sleep time and taking sleep pills instead of playing with your hormones?