Will Jet Lag Ruin The Beginning Of Your Vacation?

Thursday, May 21st, 2009 at 6:38 am

This year millions of people are going to be jetting off to the four corners of the globe to lie on a tropical beach and soak up the sun, to trek through some of world’s most beautiful wilderness countryside, to see some of the architectural wonders of our planet or to simply explore new countries and cultures. And, regrettably, hundreds of thousands of us will find that the first one or two days of our vacation are lost trying to get over jet lag.

However is jet lag an inescapable 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 start your journey in Sydney, Australia and fly to Sapporo, Japan then you are not going to experience jet lag because, despite the fact that you are traveling thousands of miles, your journey takes you north so that both your starting point and destination are in the same time zone. If however you travel from say Adelaide to London, England then you will be flying east to west across ten standard time zones and you will certainly experience jet lag.

Jet lag is really nothing more than the result of your own internal body clock getting out of step with local time and, while your internal body clock will naturally adjust itself to match the local time, adjusting your body clock takes time.

If you are traveling over only two or three time zones then the time difference is small enough that you will probably not notice it greatly and your internal clock will adjust relatively fast. If however you travel across more than four time zones then the difference will be noticeable and your internal clock will need more and more time to adjust as you cross an increasing number of time zones.

In our previous example of traveling from Australia to London your internal clock is going to need several days to adjust itself fully and, while it is doing so, you are very likely to find yourself suffering from insomnia, finding it hard to get to sleep at night and to get up in the morning, feeling tired during the day, possibly experiencing problems with eating with nausea, stomach upset, a feeling of dehydration, a headache, and a great deal more.

So just what can you do to counter this?

There are numerous ‘traditional’ jet lag cures including jet lag diets, sleeping pills, over-the-counter medicines, melatonin and much more and each has its followers and detractors, but do these so-called cures actually work?

The simple answer to this question is no. These ‘traditional’ jet lag remedies are not effective and, in many cases, will actually make your jet lag worse.

Curing jet lag is not a question of turning to pills and formulas, but is a question of coming up with a plan focusing on your particular travel plans and lifestyle which assists your body’s natural process of adjusting its own internal clock. This means taking a series of steps in preparation for your journey, as well as en-route and after your arrival at your destination. In some instances these steps will be sufficient to help you avoid jet lag altogether while, in other cases, they will definitely reduce the effects of jet lag greatly.

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