Among the greatest scourges of travelers the world over is jet lag. Following any significantly long flight, jet lag is able to dramatically and negatively impact a person’s organism. Jet lag has been said to be in a person’s head, but the reality is that it produces real physiological impacts on the human body.
The causes of jet lag are fairly simple. The change of time zones disrupts an individual’s biological clock. The body tells the person that it is time to sleep, according to the time frame in the point of origin. Since the body is in a different time zone, this presents a problem. Perhaps the jet lag sufferer’s body is telling the person that rest is required because it feels like it is the middle of the night, when the reality is that it is mid-day.
Effects and treatement
There are many effects that people experience from jet lag. Severe fatigue is only the first of these. It is able to cause other symptoms like headaches, dehydration, and grogginess. Intense jet lag can leave a person hardly able to function at all. This is unfortunate either for a vacationer who is attempting to relax and enjoy a trip, or more so for a business person going on an important business trip.
Treatments for jet lag encompass a range of activities. Reality shows that no single treatment works for all people. Effective treatment for jet lag ought to begin before the traveler leaves the ground, even weeks in advance. First, sleep patterns need to be controlled. This can be accomplished by going to bed and waking up at consistent points of the night and day, day in and day out. In such a way, the individual’s internal clock will be working at peak efficiency before the trip. Before the trip actually occurs, the person should begin to change things up on his or her internal clock. One might change the time of going to sleep. The person could start by varying the bed time by fifteen minutes before or after the norm. Over a period of days, such changes will help the biological clock to reach the point where it is capable of running at the same time as it will be at the person’s destination.
Eating healthy is another way to prepare the body for jet lag. This provides the body with sufficient energy for all the activities needed. As the body becomes healthier in general, it is better able to battle off the deleterious effects of jet lag. Good exercise in advance of a long flight, as well as a significant reduction of stress, will both help as well. These lead to greater quantities of emotional, physical, and mental energy, all helpful in dealing with jet lag.
Once people are actually on the plane, a number of different activities to fight off jet lag exist. Sleeping while on the plane assists the biological clock in dealing with the time change. To sleep better while in the air, an individual can wear headphone that are resistant to sound. Wearing sunglasses is another easy answer to jet lag, since the biological clock responds to surrounding light. When the airplane is lit up, the biological clock will not let an individual sleep well. Wearing such sunglasses can mislead the biological clock into believing that it is night time on the flight. The sunglasses will have to be worn in advance of getting on the flight, and also following getting off of it, for this trick to work properly.
0 Comments