You'd be surprised how much your body depends on natural light cues to regulate itself. Even in a culture where we have lighted rooms late into the night and wake up to completely curtained-in dark bedrooms, our bodies are still very sensitive to changes in light. This is one of the main reasons for jet lag – and it's one of the most important things to consider when trying to combat it.
What is jet lag?
Most people think that jet lag is caused by changing from one time zone to another, as though your body magically knows that you're in Europe rather than the United States. This isn't quite accurate; basically, your body is thrown by the difference in light patterns. It is already programmed to expect darkness at around 8:00 at night, and it knows the 24-hour cycle of light where you live.
When you go to Europe, it gets dark earlier than your body expects it to. It doesn’t seem like much, but that change in light can throw your body for a serious loop. It synchronizes much of its behavior - for example, when it gets hungry or tired - with natural cues like light. When the light is misbehaving, your body isn’t sure when it should get tired - leading to problems sleeping.
What makes jet lag worse?
There's no way to avoid the variations in light, but there are several other factors that have been proven to worsen the symptoms of jet lag, and most of them are avoidable.
- Change in behavior before the flight. If you're just about to take a big trip, it's tempting to have a wild night out on the town or stay up all night packing. When you do this and continue to live in your usual time zone, you'll probably still feel lousy and have a little trouble sleeping for the next few days. When you tack on the light changes of time zones, your body is completely thrown. It's basically like beating it up when it's already hurt.
- Dry atmospheres. The cabin air in your airplane is going to be quite dry because it's not natural air. This dryness can settle into your system very quickly, especially if you're used to a humid climate. In the short time it takes for you to get where you're going, you'll feel like you have a terrible hangover or a cold: you'll have dry lips, skin, and throat cells, and you'll probably have a headache. Drink lots of water to combat the dry atmosphere and avoid these symptoms.
- Alcohol. In the area of kicking your body when it's down, alcohol both dehydrates you and throws off your body's natural sleep patterns. Add in the fact that alcohol has about 3 times the potency when you're flying, and you're giving yourself a recipe for a serious hangover - not what you want when you're trying to get your body to adjust to a new time zone.
- No exercise. You're sitting in enforced confinement for as much as 24 hours when you fly internationally. When people have non-jet-lag related sleep issues, one of the most common natural recommended remedies is exercise. Conversely, lack of exercise can contribute to sleep problems, and worsen the sleep problems caused by jet lag. If at all possible, get up and walk up and down in the plane. If there's enough room, do a few simple exercises like push-ups, squats, or sit-ups. It can be embarrassing in front of other people, but you'll find that they start to look envious when they try to stretch their cramped, unused muscles. Don't worry about what people think; when you get to your destination, you'll be ready to make the shift without jet lag, and they'll be spending the first few days of their vacation in their hotel trying to sleep it off.
Basically, jet lag is a sleep problem. Anything else that can cause a sleep problem, including alcohol, lack of exercise, poor diet, and so forth, is going to contribute to your jet lag by compounding the sleep problem. If you are already aware of certain things that cause you sleep trouble even while you're not traveling, avoid them or try to find ways to counteract them. If you cannot sleep with loud noise, for example, try to find some noise-cancelling headphones. An ounce of prevention ... is worth a few days of struggling with jet lag.
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