Jetlag hits differently depending on your travel direction. Here are 6 tips to get over it
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Loading... - Grinde Lucas
- 11 Apr 2023
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After a few difficult years of lockdowns and travel restrictions, people are finally winging their way across the globe again; families are being reunited and sights are being seen.
Yet the joys of international travel often come with a side of jetlag, which can make it hard to initially enjoy a holiday, and to settle in once you return home.
Why do people experience jetlag? And is there anything you can do to lessen its effects?
What causes jetlag?
The term “jetlag” describes the physical and cognitive symptoms people experience when travelling quickly across several timezones.
Before you leave for a trip, you’re synchronised to your local time. Once you enter a new timezone, your body’s rhythms are no longer lined up with the clock on the wall.
That’s when jetlag symptoms hit. You’re sleepy when you want to be awake, and wide awake when you want to be asleep. You’re hungry in the middle of the night, and might feel bloated or nauseous if you eat during the day.
Until your body clock and all the rhythms it controls line up with the new local time, you are physiologically and mentally discombobulated. Not a happy holiday vibe!
Jetlag isn’t the same for everyone
Interestingly, the experience of jetlag varies between people. That’s because we all tick along to our own internal rhythm.
Most of us have a natural daily cycle of about 24.2 hours. So if we lived in a cave and didn’t see any light, our sleep/wake cycle and other daily rhythms would tick along at about 24.2 hours. Researchers think this is an evolutionary adaptation that allows us to adjust to different day lengths across the year. Read More…
