Posted by kathryn in Seasonal Health and Q & A Thursday

The first question in today’s Q & A Thursday is from Lucy over at Nourish Me – what are the best ways of dealing with jet lag.

What is jet lag?

While going on holiday can be a wonderful, exciting thing, spending the first few days spaced out and tired because of jet lag, is not fun. Jet lag occurs when you cross time-zones. The symptoms are usually worse after a flight going east rather than west. The more time zones you cross, the worse your jet lag will be.

This type of travel disrupts your body clock, or circadian rhythms. When you travel across time zones your internal body clock is out of sync with the time at your destination, In fact, it’s still running at the time of the place you just left. Therefore you’re experiencing daylight and darkness contrary to the rhythms you’re accustomed to.

Beating jet lag is all about re-setting your body clock.

The symptoms of jet lag

The symptoms of jet lag include daytime tiredness, disrupted sleeping, headaches, difficulty concentrating, loss of appetite and irregularities in bowel movements. All of which can also make you quite cranky.

So how do you beat jet lag?

1. Adjust your sleep to your destination time

• Jet lag causes so many problems because of the mismatch between your internal body clock and the time at your destination. Getting your body in sync with the new time is therefore the most important strategy for dealing with jet lag.
• If possible, start this a few days before your holiday. by going to bed a little later each night.
• During the flight, sleep according to the time at your destination
• As soon as you arrive, adopt the local hours for sleeping, eating and socialising – even if it means dragging yourself out of bed when you least feel like it.

2. Avoid dehydration during the flight

• During a long flight in a pressurised cabin, dehydration is your enemy. It will make you more tired and uncomfortable than you need to be.
• Drink plenty of water and don’t be tempted by the free booze.
• On long haul flights I usually take a couple of large bottles of water with me and try to sip at least a cup (250ml) every hour.

3. Don’t over-eat

• There’s not much to do on long flights. You spend most of the time sitting down, sleeping, reading and watching movies. Plus of course there are the inflight meals. While it can be easy to use food as a distraction, you’ll feel better during and after the flight if you don’t eat too much.
• Before you fly, phone the airline and order a light meal. Most airlines have low fat and heart healthy options. Some even do fresh produce meals, based around fruit and vegies. I usually order a vegan meal, as it’s almost guaranteed to contain lots of salad, vegies and fresh fruit. You don’t need a lot of kilojoules during a flight, so avoid over-eating.
• When you arrive continue to eat light food for a couple of days and avoid heavy meals.

4. Get outside and exercise at your destination

• The first day of your holiday get up early and go outside for a walk. Exposure to sunlight first thing in the morning will stimulate the release of melatonin from your pineal gland.
• Rather than just lounging around at the beach, plan to do some light exercise on the first few days of your holiday – it will keep you more alert during the day and help you sleep at night.
• While it can be tempting to use caffeine to keep yourself awake, limit yourself to one or two coffees in the morning.

5. Try these herbs

• As well as my bottles of water, whenever I travel I also pack two bottles of herbal tablets, to use in the first few days of my trip.
• The first contains a combination of valerian, passionflower, skullcap and chamomile. This is my sleep assisting formula, which I take during the flight and for the first 3 – 4 days of my trip, about one hour before bed.
• The other bottle contains a combination of ginseng, gotu kola, rosemary and damiana. For the first few days at my destination, I take this in the morning to improve my energy during the day, and help my body adapt to the shift in time zones.

Do you get jet lag and do you have any tried and tested ways of beatingit? I’m not a homeopath but I’m interested to hear if anyone’s used the homeopathic jet lag preparations, particularly arnica and cocculus? Let me know.

What is Q & A Thursday?

This post is part of Q & A Thursday – a weekly burst of blogging, where you get to dictate the subject matter. Q & A Thursday is all about simple, practical and sensible answers to food, diet and health dilemmas sent in by readers. If you have a question you’d like answered, then either leave a comment or send me an email. For more information you can take a look at the Q & A Thursday archives.

27 September, 2007