Is Jet Lag Going To Spoil The Start Of Your Vacation?
This year many thousands of people are going to be jetting off to far flung corners of the globe to lie on a tropical beach and soak up the sun, 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 simply explore new cultures and countries. And, unfortunately, tens of thousands of us are also going to discover that the first one or two days of our holiday are taken up with trying to recover from jet lag.
However does jet lag have to be an unavoidable part of modern long-haul travel?
The answer to this particular is very much dependent upon where you are flying to. For instance, if you begin your journey in Sydney, Australia and fly to Sapporo, Japan then you will not experience any jet lag at all because, despite the fact that you are traveling thousands of miles, your flight takes you due north so that both your starting point and destination are in the same time zone. If however you travel from say Brisbane to London, England then you will be traveling east to west across ten time zones and will definitely experience jet lag.
Jet lag is really nothing more than the result of your body clock being out of synchronization with local time and, while your internal body clock will naturally adjust itself to match the local time, any adjustment takes a little time.
If you fly over only two or three time zones then the time difference experienced will be small and you will probably not notice it greatly and your body clock will adjust reasonably quickly. However, if you travel across four or more time zones then the time difference will be noticeable and your internal clock will need more and more time to adjust as you fly across more and more time zones.
So, in our previous example of traveling from Australia to London your body clock will take a few days to adjust and, in the meantime, you are likely to find yourself suffering from insomnia, finding it hard to fall asleep at night and to get up in the morning, feeling tired during the day, possibly experiencing difficulty in eating with stomach upsets, nausea, a feeling of dehydration, a headache, and a great deal more.
So what can you do to counter this?
There are various ‘traditional’ jet lag remedies including jet lag diets, sleeping pills, over-the-counter medicines, melatonin and much more and each of these has both its enthusiasts and critics, but are these ‘traditional’ remedies the answer?
In simple terms the answer to this question is no. These ‘traditional’ jet lag remedies are not effective and, in some cases, can actually make your jet lag worse.
Dealing with jet lag is not a question of using formulas and pills, but requires you to devise a plan focusing on your specific travel plans and lifestyle that allows you to assist your body’s natural adjustment of its own internal body clock. This involves taking a number of steps in preparation for your departure, as well as en-route and at your destination. In some instances these steps are going to be enough for you to avoid jet lag altogether and, in other cases, they will certainly reduce the effects of jet lag greatly.
