I’m a sleep expert and here’s how to cure jet lag
Heading off to a faraway paradise often comes at a price: jet lag that saps your soul.
But thankfully, science has a cure.
Meet jet lag guru Professor Leon Lack, a sleep expert from Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, who here reveals why flying west is best and east is worst, and the dream ticket to banishing jet lag gloom – light therapy.
Tips – land there will be light
Sleep expert Professor Leon Lack is pictured here wearing his ‘Re-timer’ light therapy glasses, which ‘help to overcome jet lag’
Prof Lack says the “strongest tool” when it comes to adjusting your biological clock is “bright light.”
He explains: ‘Jet lag can be overcome more quickly after flights to the west by visual exposure to light (white or blue/green colored light) in the late afternoon and evening.
Jet lag can be overcome more quickly after westbound flights through visual exposure to light
‘If the destination has sunny weather, outdoor lighting until sunset is useful. In more wintry early sunsets of the year, a bright blue/green light source would be helpful.
“For example, we have developed a portable light therapy device that is useful for overcoming jet lag.”
The device is called Re-timerlight therapy glasses that, according to the dedicated website for them, “bring the sun in when there’s simply not enough natural light in those long winter months.”
Melatonin
Prof Lack says melatonin can also be helpful and suggests taking a low dose (0.5mg to 1mg) of ‘rapid release melatonin’ when you want to go to sleep.
This can ‘serve both’ as a mild sedative, with no side effects, but also as an aid to reset your clock to its new destination,” he explains.
He adds: ‘Sleeping tablets are unlikely to sedate more than the melatonin and they have no direct slowing effect on the body clock and if taken for a week they can cause withdrawal sleep disturbances.’
What to avoid
Professor Lack says after arriving at your destination you should be ‘active for the first few days and get out into the sun’
Prof Lack says: ‘Be careful with an afternoon nap after the flight to make up for the “lost sleep” during the flight.
“It can turn into eight hours of sleep during the day and wide awake at midnight.”
“It’s better to be active for the first few days and go out into the sun.
‘Some sleep deprivation on the plane is not harmful to your health – avoid driving if you are drowsy.
“Save your drowsiness for the night of destination.”
Why going east is more tiring
Most people have a nighttime body clock that follows a 24.5-hour day, slightly longer than the standard 24-hour sun-up-sun-set rhythm, explains Dr. Kieran Seyan of the Lloyds Pharmacy Online Arts Site.
This ‘delay’ means that traveling east across multiple time zones means the body is forced to fall into an earlier sleep pattern, which it generally protests more strongly against.
Dr. For example, Seyan says that if a passenger departs London at 7am and flies to Tokyo before 11am, it will land at 6pm London time for that passenger. So time for dinner and then to bed.
But in Tokyo it’s 2am the next day, so the passenger actually arrived in the middle of the night.
“Most people need a day or three to adjust to that change,” Professor Lack said.
Going west – why it’s not so exhausting
Professor Lack says: ‘Flying west across time zones requires slowing down the body clock to synchronize with the destination clock and sleep when everyone else is asleep and available for work or play when others at the destination do too.
“Since most people’s body clocks naturally slow down when given the chance or encouragement, they’re more likely to overcome the jet lag of a westward time zone shift and this is especially true for evening types.”