Travel & Leisure Facts and Notes

This year many thousands of us will be flying off to the four corners of the globe to lie on sun soaked tropical beach, to trek through some of the most beautiful of the world’s wilderness areas, to witness some of the wonders of our planet or to merely explore new cultures and countries. And, unhappily, hundreds of thousands of us will find that the first couple of days of our holiday are lost trying to recover from the effects of jet lag.

But does jet lag have to be an inescapable part of long-haul travel?

The answer to this question depends very much on where you are flying to. For instance, if you start your journey in Sydney, Australia and fly to Sapporo, Japan then you will not experience jet lag because, despite the fact that you are flying some 7,000 miles, your journey takes you due north so that your departure point and arrival point are in the same time zone. If however you travel from Sydney to London, England then you will be traveling east to west over ten time zones and will undoubtedly experience jet lag.

Jet lag is really nothing more than the result of your internal body clock being out of step with local time and, although your body clock can naturally adjust itself to match the local time, any adjustment takes a bit of time.

If you are flying over only two or three time zones then the time difference is small enough that you will probably not notice it greatly and your body clock will adjust itself quite quickly. If however you travel over four or more time zones then the time difference will be significant and your body clock will take longer and longer to adjust as you fly across more and more time zones.

So, in our example of traveling from Australia to London your body clock is going to need several days to adjust and, in the meantime, you are likely to find yourself suffering from insomnia, finding it difficult to fall asleep at night and to wake up in the morning, feeling tired during the day, possibly experiencing problems with eating with stomach upsets, nausea, a feeling of dehydration, a headache, and a great deal more.

So just what can be done to tackle the problem of jet lag?

There are a whole variety of ‘traditional’ remedies for jet lag including formulas, diets, over-the-counter medication, sleeping pills, melatonin and much more and each of these has both its enthusiasts and detractors, but are these ‘traditional’ cures effective?

In simple terms the answer to this question is no. These ‘traditional’ remedies are not effective and, in some cases, will make your jet lag worse.

Treating jet lag is not a question of formulas and pills, but is a matter of devising a plan focusing on your particular travel plans and your lifestyle which helps your body’s natural adjustment of its own body clock. This means taking a series of steps before your departure, as well as en-route and after your arrival at your destination. Sometimes these steps will be enough for you to avoid jet lag completely and, in others, they will certainly reduce the effects of jet lag greatly.