Jet Lag

• Disturbed sleep - insomnia, waking and sleepiness
• Daytime fatigue
• Difficulty functioning and concentrating at your usual level
• Stomach symptoms – like constipation and diarrhoea
• General unwell feeling
• Mood changes
• Implications on neurological, immune, psychiatric, cardiovascular, reproductive and gastrointestinal conditions 

Circadian Rhythm is roughly a 24-hour cycle in the physiological process of living beings. In humans, they can be endogenously generated yet can be modulated with cues like sunlight, darkness and temperature.

These circadian rhythms are controlled by an area of the hypothalamus called the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) which responds to exposure to light and dark.

1. Talk to your practitioner to see if there is anything that would be helpful for sleeping on the plane like magnesium, melatonin, chamomile, lemongrass etc. This is often repeated for 4 days following the trip to help the circadian rhythm come back into balance.
2. On departure change your watch to your destination time. Try and think in this new time frame. Try and sleep from 8-9pm of your destination time. If you cannot sleep at this time do not stress. Simply close your eyes and calmly rest or meditate if possible.  In the awake time, try to occupy yourself with books, movies or walking around the plane.
3. If trying to sleep in light conditions then use eye masks and close the window so outside light is not coming in the plane window.
4.  Pre-order meals so they are simple and gluten free. Another option is to order Vegan food. Drink lots of water and do not have alcohol or caffeine on the flight.
5. On arrival at your destination, again take note of the time, and if it is daylight hours stay awake and keep busy. It is great on arrival to have a shower and change your clothes and then spend the day busy and ideally in fresh air.
6. Then when it is bed time do not use electronics within 2 hours of this time. Wind down and prepare for a snuggly beautiful sleep. Black out curtains can help if in daylight savings conditions.

I talk about jet lag for plane travel but there is also a condition called social/work jet lag. Social Jet Lag is predominantly a modern phenomenon. It refers to an unaligned biological clock due to work or social time schedules. It is also hard on the circadian rhythms when we have normal hours of sleep in the weekdays and then completely different sleep patterns on weekends. The moon, the sun and the tides all have cycles and our bodies love regular and balanced sleep cycles. Disruption to sleep easily happens with busy, social, modern lives.

One thing to remember is the 30 minutes of sleep before midnight can be equivalent to 2 hours sleep after midnight. In summary try to get to sleep earlier and definitely before midnight. 1pm to bed and 11am waking is not a healthy sleep pattern.

If your sleep pattern is out of whack then try and go to bed 30minutes earlier each night till you get to the right time and while you are doing this try to wake up before 9am and bring this earlier if possible. Get up in the morning and exercise outside on waking even if it is just a walk.