What is Jet Lag?
KEY POINTS:
1. Your body has a natural circadian rhythm, an internal biological clock which regulates sleep, eating patterns, mood, hormone regulation, and everything your body does during the day.
2. Jet lag is a misalignment between this internal clock and external cues, such as light exposure. This can lead to reduced alertness, nighttime insomnia, loss of appetite, depressed mood, poor balance and coordination, gastrointestinal upset, fatigue, cloudy thinking, and decreased physical and mental performance.
3. Fortunately, there are several tricks of the trade we will share with you to help combat jet lag and live your best life!
Humans experience fluctuations in mood, sleep, hormones, body temperature and behaviour depending on the time of the day. But how exactly does our body regulate this?
In 1984, Jeffrey Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael Young isolated the period gene which encodes a protein accumulated in the cell during the day and degraded at night. This 24-hour biological clock is commonly referred to as the circadian rhythm. Many of our genes are regulated by this internal clock, causing our minds and bodies to adapt to different phases of the day.
Ideally, in a body that is adjusted to its local time zone, the body’s circadian rhythms behave as follows:
• Melatonin secretion peaks at night, and decreases throughout the day
• Cortisol levels peak in the morning, and decrease throughout the day
• Core body temperature reaches its lowest peak in the middle of the night and rises throughout the day
• Clock genes promote activity in the daytime and recovery during the night.
The circadian clock anticipates and adapts our physiology to the different phases of the day. Our biological clock helps to regulate sleep patterns, feeding behaviour, hormone release, blood pressure, and body temperature. From https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2017/press.html
Rapid travel across multiple time zones causes a temporary misalignment between biological rhythms and external cues known as zeitgebers, or “time givers.” Jet lag, or flight dysrhythmia, is essentially caused by a desynchronization between our internal circadian clock and external cues, including natural variations like the light/dark cycles in solar days.
Simply put, jet lag throws our internal rhythms out of sync with our external environment, leaving us with numerous unpleasant symptoms that you all have experienced: reduced alertness, nighttime insomnia, loss of appetite, depressed mood, poor balance and coordination, gastrointestinal upset, fatigue, cloudy thinking, and decreased physical and mental performance. The more time zones we cross, the worse our jet lag is likely to be.
All of that is a way of saying that jet lag seriously messes with our physical, mental and emotional wellness. As an airline employee, you are subjected to time changes on a frequent basis, and these symptoms are likely all too familiar.
Jet lag can also be made worse by travel fatigue and the general stresses associated with long trips. In fact, pilots often complain that their fatigue is due to not only time zone transitions, but also to sleep deprivation, time pressure, multiple flight legs, and consecutive duty periods. So how do we support health with all these factors?
Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll take you through the five keys that will help you combat both jet lag and travel fatigue.
Today's 1% Tip: Try Yoga for a Deeper Sleep
1. Start with Ujjayi Breathing for a few minutes to relax and activate your parasympathetic nervous system.
2. Then move through head to knee forward bend, child pose, and corpse pose.
That sequence works wonders for calming the body and mind and setting you up for a deep, restful sleep.
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