Jet lag remedies?

galain

Hall of Fame
Help!

jetlag never bothered me much before but I'm hurting at the moment. Just flew 10 hours back in time, falling unconscious at around 7 or 8 pm, been waking up between 1.30 and 3 and in 2 days I need to teach a class that finishes at 10.30pm (and drive myself home).

Does anyone out there have any tried and true remedies that have helped?

(a lot of the sleep aids available in the US like melatonin aren't available where I am. I was thinking more along the lines of home remedies).

Many many thanks in advance
 

Chico

Banned
Chico, you're the GOAT of air travel (no sarcasm). :)

No I am not, but due to me currently living on the "wrong side" of the Atlantic and away from my home country, I do travel fairly regularly back and forth Europe and NA and do experience jet lag every time. And it is not fun.
 

galain

Hall of Fame
I think some sleep would be the solution.

Apart from tonight, I'm sleeping well enough. I got about 5 hours this evening. The issue is I'm not readjusting to local time - and I really need to be as functional as possible in the next couple of days.
 

Mike Bulgakov

G.O.A.T.
How to Prevent Jet Lag

Scientists describe a system of light exposure that will make long plane trips more pleasurable

By Jay Olson

Jet lag: the main killer of productivity and enjoyment when travelling across time zones. Common folk remedies include pressure points, aromatherapy, and light exposure behind the knee. But is there evidence any of these actually work? Probably not. Fortunately, recent research on circadian rhythms has suggested a reliable method to reduce or even completely prevent jet lag.

Circadian rhythms are the roughly 24-hour biological rhythms that drive changes within humans and most other organisms. For example, humans have circadian rhythms of alertness and body temperature. Usually these rhythms align with the environment’s natural light and dark cycle: peak drowsiness occurs around 5:00 AM, when it is often dark out. Jet lag occurs when our rhythms no longer align with the environment. Flying from Vancouver to Moscow — 12 hours ahead — means that peak drowsiness occurs at 5:00 PM, when one would usually want to be alert. Although scientists have known about circadian rhythms for centuries, evidence has recently accumulated that we can apply this knowledge to minimise the negative effects of shift work and jet lag.

Whether circadian rhythms align with the environment is determined by factors such as exercise, melatonin, and light. Bright light exposure is the most powerful way to cause a phase shift — an advance or delay in circadian rhythms. Light in the early morning makes you wake up earlier (“phase advance”); light around bed time makes you wake up later (“phase delay”).

This simple insight can be used to minimise jet lag. For example, Helen Burgess and colleagues from the Rush University Medical Center in Chicago studied whether jet lag could be prevented by phase shifting before departing. After three days of light exposure in the morning, the participants’ circadian rhythms shifted by an average of 2.1 hours. This means they would feel less jet lagged, and would be fully adjusted to the new time zone around two days earlier. Several field studies have reached similar conclusions.

Thus, seeking and avoiding light at the right times can reduce jet lag. To seek light, expose yourself to bright and continuous light by going out in sunlight or using a commercially-available portable light box. To avoid light, stay indoors away from sunlight, or wear dark sunglasses.

Calculating when to seek and avoid light depends on the number of time zones crossed, direction of travel, and usual wake and sleep times. These calculations can be done automatically online, or manually by following some rough guidelines:

1. Estimate when your body temperature reaches a minimum. If sleeping 7 or fewer hours per night, assume this is 2 hours before your usual wake time. If sleeping more, assume this is 3 hours before your usual wake time.

2. Determine whether you need to advance or delay your circadian rhythms. If you are flying east (to a later time zone), such as from Los Angeles to New York, you will need to phase advance. Otherwise, if you are flying west, you will need to phase delay.

3. If you need to phase advance, avoid light for 4 hours before your body temperature minimum, and seek light for 4 hours after it. Otherwise, do the opposite.

4. Shift your estimated body temperature minimum by one hour earlier per day if phase advancing, or one and a half hours later per day if phase delaying.

Of course, most people try to adjust to the new time zone without controlling their exposure to light and dark. These people often end up jet lagged for longer than necessary. They can also experience antidromic re-entrainment, when the circadian rhythms shift in the opposite direction. For example, incidental light exposure can cause people to phase delay rather than phase advance, making jet lag worse. Besides gastrointestinal disturbances and reduced alertness, frequent jet lag is associated with cancer and digestive diseases in humans, and increases mortality in mice.

Given this knowledge of circadian rhythms, one can — as one article title claimed — “trick Mother Nature” into letting you fly around the world without jet lag. And you won’t even need a flashlight behind your knee.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-to-prevent-jet-lag
 

Vcore89

Talk Tennis Guru
Travelling across time zones, especially the whirlwind kind (most of my travels are), I learned not to eat any meals but to get as much sleep as possible.

I'll tell the stewards not to wake me up for meals or other non-essentials but it is also policy/regulation to wake someone up on the third meal; to check if the guy is still sleeping or had already croaked.:)
 

mmk

Hall of Fame
When I've flown from the DC area to Sydney, leaving in the afternoon and arriving around 7AM two days later (but around 26 hours door to door), I pound down coca cola until around 3PM, and force myself to stay up until at least 10PM, and I'm good the next day.
Coming home, I've left around 3PM and arrived at the airport just before midnight the same day, then driven the 45 minutes home. I finally get to sleep around 3 or 4 in the morning, and when I do wake up I again force myself to stay up until at least 10PM. I'm usually fine the next day.
My co-workers, whether in their 20s-30s, or my mid-50s, seem to have a harder time on the same trips, but one major difference is that I don't drink.
 

ollinger

G.O.A.T.
Plenty of data in the medical literature supporting the use of melatonin to prevent/treat jet lag, though it seems to be more useful when traveling from west to east.
 

dr325i

G.O.A.T.
I spend on average 2 weeks in Asia and 3-4 weeks back at home (in TX) throughout a year. That is +13 to 15 hours time change.
Going from TX to Narita/China, etc., it does not bother me as much as it is a day flight, arriving Asia in the late afternoon, so, you go to bed.
However, coming back, it is anight flight, arriving DFW in the afternoon and can be bad. Exercise/tennis helps me a lot and generally I am re-adjusted after 2-3 days. Second day after the arrival is the worst for me (both ways).

I do take sleeping pills in both directions first (and sometimes second) night upon arrival. However, exercise is the best remedy for me.
 

mmk

Hall of Fame
I spend on average 2 weeks in Asia and 3-4 weeks back at home (in TX) throughout a year. That is +13 to 15 hours time change.
Going from TX to Narita/China, etc., it does not bother me as much as it is a day flight, arriving Asia in the late afternoon, so, you go to bed.
However, coming back, it is anight flight, arriving DFW in the afternoon and can be bad. Exercise/tennis helps me a lot and generally I am re-adjusted after 2-3 days. Second day after the arrival is the worst for me (both ways).

I do take sleeping pills in both directions first (and sometimes second) night upon arrival. However, exercise is the best remedy for me.

Good point, I also walked about 4-5 miles each of my first days in Sydney.
 

Mike Bulgakov

G.O.A.T.
Dehydration can also be a big issue on long flights. I make a point of drinking lots of water.

A Battle Plan for Jet Lag

By STEPHANIE ROSENBLOOM
Published: August 15, 2012

THERE are more so-called remedies for jet lag than there are time zones, from long-standing antidotes like No-Jet-Lag’s homeopathic tablets to new innovations like the Valkee Brain Stimulation Headset, which was tested earlier this year by Finnair and purports to alleviate jet lag by channeling bright light into the brain through the ear canal.

Yet some of the latest (and perhaps most effective) jet-lag solutions are being developed for people who fly to places most of us never will. The fatigue management team at NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston helps astronauts — who, for training purposes, must fly frequently among international space agencies in Russia, Japan and Germany — overcome jet lag two to three times faster than other travelers. And while the anti-jet-lag plans that the team prescribes are highly individualized, the general principles can be simplified for the bleary-eyed rest of us.

As anyone who has ever flitted across multiple time zones knows, when your internal clock is unable to adapt to a rapid change in the light-dark cycle, the result is jet lag. Read: fatigue, moodiness, gastrointestinal unpleasantness. In a perfect world, everyone would take preventive measures — like preparing for a trip to Paris from Washington by going to sleep earlier and earlier each night a few days before the flight. But most of us spend the days before a vacation frantically trying to polish off work and make sure the plants and pets won’t die while we’re gone.

And so below are steps you can take to minimize jet lag, from the moment you board the plane through your first night in a far-flung destination.

1. Understand that the direction you are traveling makes a difference.

“It’s only in the past 100 years that we’ve been able to jump time zones,” said Steven W. Lockley, a consulting member of NASA’s fatigue management team, who is also a neuroscientist specializing in sleep medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard in Boston. “We haven’t evolved a way to adapt yet.”

There are, however, ways to cope. Begin by determining whether you are traveling east or west. Most people (three quarters of us, according to Professor Lockley) have an internal body clock that makes it harder for them to travel east. So, while most of Florence, Italy, is sleeping, a tourist from New York is wide awake and itching to climb the Duomo because it’s barely time for dinner back on the East Coast.

Even within the United States, traveling east over just three time zones can be taxing: a study led by Dr. Lawrence D. Recht, a neurologist, of 19 Major League Baseball teams using season records from 1991 to 1993 showed that the team that had just completed eastward travel would give up more than one run than usual in every game.

If you’re traveling east and want to adapt to the new time, you will have to wake up earlier and go to bed earlier than you normally would. This is known as advancing your body clock. If you’re traveling west, you’ll have to adapt to the new time by waking up later than usual and going to bed later than usual, delaying your body clock. Easier said than done. So how does one do this as painlessly as possible?

2. Schedule when to expose yourself to light and when to avoid it.

It takes about a day to shift one time zone, said Dr. Smith L. Johnston, a flight surgeon and the chief of the fatigue management team at NASA. To do it faster, you must regulate your exposure to light — both natural and artificial — and darkness. Yes, there are all kinds of jet-lag cure-alls on the market, but experts say that since light is the primary environmental cue telling your body’s clock when to sleep and when to wake, controlling jet lag is fundamentally about controlling light and darkness.

With that in mind, here are the general guidelines: if you are traveling east, you must expose yourself to light early, advancing your body clock so that it will be in sync with the new time zone. Conversely, if traveling west, you should expose yourself to light at dusk and the early part of the evening, delaying your body clock so that it will be in sync with the new time zone.

This may be best understood with an example. Let’s say that at 7 p.m. you board a plane in New York that is scheduled to arrive in London at 7 a.m. local time (when it’s 2 a.m. in New York). You’re traveling east, which means you need to advance your internal clock toward London time. To do that, avoid any kind of light during the flight because the exposure will delay your body clock rather than advance it. An obvious (albeit odd) way to accomplish this is to wear sunglasses in the plane. That’s what Professor Lockley and his colleagues do despite the fact that they are flying at night. “People think you’re a rock star,” he said.

Typically, when travelers arrive in London at 7 a.m. they attempt to get on the new time zone right away. “Which is exactly the wrong thing,” Professor Lockley said, because your internal clock is still set to New York time, and trying to adjust too quickly will only exhaust you. What you need to do is to ease yourself into the new time zone by consciously manipulating your exposure to light. So keep those sunglasses on.

“I’m the only person wearing sunglasses at Heathrow,” said Professor Lockley, who, in the London example, would recommend wearing sunglasses for the entire flight, and once off the plane, until 11 a.m. London time (6 a.m. New York time). Throughout the rest of the day, seeing light will help you to be more alert and to reset your internal clock to local London time. (For those who want to get granular, the new book “Sleep: A Very Short Introduction,” which Professor Lockley co-authored, provides details about which hours of the day exposing yourself to light or darkness will be most beneficial to overcoming jet lag.)

If you are able to sleep during the flight, even better. Astronauts and mission-control personnel have used eye masks, earplugs and sleep aids like Ambien to help them doze, Dr. Johnston said. But he cautioned travelers who want to take a sleeping pill to check with their doctor first and to avoid taking any medication with alcohol. Many airline passengers “just get drunk and pass out,” he said, underscoring that a hangover does nothing to alleviate jet lag.

Those who want to take synthetic melatonin because it might induce sleepiness during a flight should also consult a doctor first to find out if it is safe for them. Furthermore, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention caution, synthetic melatonin is not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration.

Now, if you were to take a morning flight instead of an evening flight to London from New York, you would want to expose yourself to light throughout the flight (no need for sunglasses), as well as when you land in London, soaking up as much sun as possible all day. “You can have exactly the same trip but the advice is opposite depending on what time you’re taking the flight,” said Professor Lockley, who has also used these principles to help racehorses acclimate to new time zones. “Once you understand the timing issue you can go through that process for any trip.”


3. Survive the first night by eating right and preparing the hotel room for a good night’s sleep.

Whatever you do on your first day, remember that the things capable of upsetting your body when you’re at home can be even more troublesome when traveling. For instance, some of us know that alcohol may help when it comes to falling asleep but that it can interrupt later stages of sleep, which would only exacerbate jet lag. Large or spicy meals should also be avoided in the evening at your destination, Professor Lockley advised, because the body is not as efficient at metabolizing food at that time.

At night (and for each night of your London trip) about an hour or so before bed, keep the lights in your room as dim as possible. Close blinds or curtains and cover any light from a clock, computer, television, even your smartphone, because light can make you more alert and reset your internal clock to the wrong time, making you think the day has begun.

More tips on improving sleep at home or on the road are available at Harvard University’s “healthy sleep” Web site, healthysleep.med.harvard.edu/healthy/getting/overcoming/tips. Just don’t log on before bedtime.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/travel/a-battle-plan-for-jet-lag.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
 

dr325i

G.O.A.T.
I have seen and read a lot of info on dehydration, melatonin, this and that. I tried it all. In the end, I drink the same on that 14-hour flight as I would at home and no melatonin supplements needed. The sleeping pill help is there just to give me a little kick in the evening since I probably spent a few hours dozing off on that flight (especially since I get upgraded 90% of the time).
 

moshi2

Rookie
I am the same way whenever I travel to my home country for 2-3 weeks. I pass out around 6-7pm and awake by 2-3 am at least for the first week. But when I go back to US, I can go back to normal routine within 1-2 days. I think that's because here in US, I push myself not to sleep whenever I want to and I can't fall asleep at work. So I keep moving around and doing something (stay away from bedrooms) until it's normal time to sleep. During vacation, it's much more laid back....so I don't push myself that hard. I think that's the key for me.
 

LuckyR

Legend
I don't suffer jet lag when going west, but almost always do when traveling east. What works for me is to immediately adopt the time of day where I land. That is, if it early morning locally I stay up even if I have been up all night according to my place of origin. Or if it is nightfall I go to sleep, even if I just slept on the plane.

Works for me.
 

DNShade

Hall of Fame
"You wanna know the secret to surviving air travel? After you get where you're going, take off your shoes and your socks then walk around on the rug bare foot and make fists with your toes."

"Fists with your toes?"

"I know, I know, it sounds crazy. Trust me, I've been doing it for nine years. Yes sir, better than a shower and a hot cup of coffee."

"Okay..."
 

mikeler

Moderator
"You wanna know the secret to surviving air travel? After you get where you're going, take off your shoes and your socks then walk around on the rug bare foot and make fists with your toes."

"Fists with your toes?"

"I know, I know, it sounds crazy. Trust me, I've been doing it for nine years. Yes sir, better than a shower and a hot cup of coffee."

"Okay..."

If it works for Bruce Willis then it can work for anyone. ;)
 
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