Get over it, jetlag tips

November 8, 2007 by Brightroam Blogger in Air travel, Health and Wellness | Leave a comment

Your eyes are burning, feet swollen, legs sore – yup, it’s been a long flight and now you have to suffer through jetlag. Jetlag can include tiredness, dehydration, disorientation, swelling of limbs, colds and flu. From a three hour to 13 hour time difference jetlag is a reality.

According to Wikipedia, “When traveling across a number of time zones, the body clock goes out of sync with the destination time, and so it experiences daylight and darkness contrary to the rhythms to which it has grown accustomed. Jet lag occurs because the body cannot immediately realign these rhythms.”

So how do you get your body back in sync? Like everything else, it will entirely depend upon the individual. If you’re a teenager who can drink all night and still get up at 8AM for class, well chances are your clock is off track anyhow. But if you are like the rest of us, try some of these tips:

The British Airways Jetlag Advisor

This is a nifty little tool BA has created to help determine what your sleep patterns are, what time it is in your hometown vs. where you are staying and what you need to do to set your clock right. It depends highly on the theory that jetlag is primarily caused by daylight and darkness. Test out the BA Advisor.

Adjust your in-flight experience

This is by far my favourite solution and is recommended on many travel website. Rob from the Gorp exert advice panel recommends you set your watch to the time of your destination as soon as you board and adjust what you do on the place to match it. For example, if it’s midnight when you board and will be morning when you arrive then sleeping the whole flight will align your clocks better. If the opposite is true, then stay awake for as much of the flight as you can. It is also recommended you align your meals to your destination time. Read full article.

Take a pill

There is a drug for everything. No-Jet-Lag is a homeopathic remedy, a herbal tablet developed in New Zealand that remains popular. Simply chew one tablet before take-off and again at landing. Visit No Jet Lag to find out more.

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