8 ways to beat jet lag

If you’ve flown long haul, you’ll know all about the feeling of jet lag and how disorientating it can be. Feeling so exhausted and wanting to lie down, but knowing if you do, you could be wide awake and up all through the night. And while jet lag and a time zone change are a necessary evil of travelling to far and distant lands (something all travel fans begrudgingly put up with), there are a few tips and tricks that can help minimise the symptoms of jet lag and their effects.

Jet lag is the feeling you experience when you fly across different time zones. The medical term is desynchronisation and as the name suggests, it’s a lag in synchronising your body with the time zone in your destination. For example, if you leave a country in the morning and fly for 10 hours and arrive at your destination also in the morning of the same day in that time zone, it may feel as though you’ve gone back in time. On the flip side, you could fly 26 hours, to a destination like New Zealand that’s 12 hours ahead and feel like you have completely lost a day.

Often the impulse is to go to bed to sleep off the jet lag, but actually this could be making your symptoms worse, especially if your body clock is still set to your place of origin.

Jet lag has always been associated with disruption in your sleep pattern as a result of your messed-up body clock, but recent evidence suggests that your digestive pattern could also play a part. Your body clock is determined by both factors – they send signals to your brain, telling it when you should be active and when you should be resting. These are key factors when dealing with the effects of jet lag.

Symptoms are worse the greater the time zone change, or essentially, the more time zones you travel across. So, you’d experience jet lag to a higher degree if you flew from Las Vegas to the UK, rather than Cape Town to the UK, because Las Vegas is eight hours behind GMT (Greenwich Mean Time), while Cape Town is two hours ahead of GMT.

The most common symptoms of jet lag include:

• tiredness

• lethargy

• fatigue

• dizziness

• digestive issues

• anxiety

• irritability

• confusion

Flying in an easterly direction is much tougher on your body clock and results in worse jet lag than flying towards the West. This is because you are getting ahead of time and essentially losing hours. You’ll end up trying to get some sleep when your body is wide-awake, or having to get up when your body thinks it’s the middle of the night.

There’s no definitive answer, unfortunately it can depend on many factors including the individual. As a rule of thumb, the body can acclimatise to a new time zone in a matter of days. For some, it could take several weeks. Some experts say it can take approximately one day for each hour of time zone changes.

Getting exposure to natural light at your destination is the best way to speed up acclimatising to a new time zone

Beating it completely is impossible if you’re flying long haul. But you can greatly reduce the symptoms of jet lag by taking a few simple actions below.

If you’re on a long flight, then use that time to try and get some rest. While in-flight movies and a good book might be tempting, getting some sleep – even just a few hours – will mean that you’ll be more focused and functional when you land, and able to perhaps be able to last a bit longer until bedtime

Getting exposure to natural light at your destination is the best way to speed up acclimatising to a new time zone. Light, particularly natural light, influences our circadian rhythms that help regulate our internal clocks. In the same way, it’s best to avoid blue electronic lights from mobile devices, tablets etc when you’re trying to get to sleep or in periods of darkness, as the light will have the opposite effect and act as a stimulus.

We’ve all done that on a flight to a European destination by adjusting our clocks forward an hour to feel like we are on holiday already. Do this at the start of your long-haul flight so that your brain adjusts to being in the new time zone. Avoid sleeping during dayight hours in your destination and sleep during the night hours at your destination’s time zone. You should invest in a good eye mask before you travel.

For the same reason as above, if you can eat at the correct mealtimes in your destination time zone, you will give your body a fighting chance at adjusting more quickly.

Most flights will serve meals as per the times of your country of origin and may dim the cabin lights at night. Take some snacks and keep yourself fed and watered at the right times.

If you can give yourself a head start on the rest factor, do so. Travelling long haul is tiring. Jet lag, like any other exhausting experience such as a virus, is worse when you’re already overtired. Sleep well and arrive at the airport feeling like you’ve banked some rest.

If you arrive during the day, rest, recover and rehydrate but avoid sleep. This messes your body clock up and only prolongs the adjustment period.

Whether you’re on holiday or back home again after a long flight, there’s nothing worse than waking up at 3am for days and days to come, because you’re all out of sorts. Try and hold out from sleeping during the day and instead, get an early night.

Trick your body into believing it’s day time by being active. This is easier said than done, but just as you would do on a plane to beat DVT, walk around, stretch your legs, have a chat and generally avoid snoozing. If you’re back home and it is daytime, but your body thinks it’s night time, do some light exercise such as walking and avoid sleeping until the evening.

At a push, have an afternoon nap, but set an alarm to only sleep for an hour or two. A power nap is better than having a full-on sleep and then being wide awake at night.

Sleeping pills, alcohol, coffee – as effective as these may be at the time, they will take their toll. Forcing yourself to be awake when you should be sleeping and to sleep when you should be awake, will wreck-havoc on your body clock and could also make you feel stressed and anxious.

Don’t force your body to do something it doesn’t want to do. Gently coax yourself into your new time zone and you should minimise the effects of jet lag nicely.