Summer is the time when many of us travel to distant places. We look forward to having a great time. However, if we travel over more than five to six time zones, many of us run into a Circadian Disorder referred to as Jet Lag. Simply defined, Jet Lag is when your internal biologic clock is out of step with the local clock in the new time zone. Some of the symptoms include anxiety, fatigue, insomnia, irritability and digestive upset.
Traveling from west to east is more difficult. You can estimate that it will take your biologic clock an average of one to two days to adapt per time zone crossed. There are several things that you can do to hasten this process. If you are flying east, try to get to bed one hour earlier at home until you are getting to sleep three hours earlier the night before the trip. The opposite applies to westward travel. Also, do not expose yourself to bright light on your arrival until the afternoon when traveling east, and in the morning when traveling west. This will speed up your adaptation to the new time zone. Finally, consider melatonin at bedtime when you reach your arrival destination. Taken for three days, it can be very effective in recycling your internal clock.
