[dilanium]

This may have been covered in another post before, but I thought I would bring it up as it's something interesting.

I was talking to one of my professors (of Biology) today about jet lag. Apparently, the current theory as to why you feel so bad for a few days is due to your liver cells. When you change time zones, you need to reset your circadian rhythms, and the slowest cells to reset is in your liver.

He stated, that you can help combat jet lag by changing when you eat before you leave. For instance if the area you are heading to is one hour before your time zone, to eat all of your meals an hour earlier than you usually do.

For people moving to NZ, the time difference is often much more than an hour, but by changing your eating times by a few hours before you leave, it can supposedly help you when you arrive. I haven't tested this (yet), but it's interesting and good to know.

Does anyone else have some good tips for Jet Lag?

-Liz

[gil]

Liz,
Someone recommended homeopathic tablets called No Jet Lag (I think), but I couldn't get them in UK before we came. I think they are Aus or NZ made. Anyway, I have now bought some for my daughter as she to-s and fro-s between NZ and UK. Only going on hearsay, but they supposed to be very good,

Gil

[Chiba]

For me, going to work cures it. No, really! I find it painful going to the UK because I'm on holiday and there's no structure. When I come back here I'm straight back to work - it forces my internal clock to sort itself out.

[migratory birds]

I have used 5-HTP or 5-hydroxy tryptophan with great results (product of L-tryptophan and precursor of serotonin which is a precursor to melatonin) shortly before travel and after arriving for a short time.

I start low on dosage and increase over a few days (side effects of too much can be nausea and drowsiness) I start at 50mg 3X/day for 3 days, increasing it to 100 mg 3X/day for 3 days...can go up to 200 mg 3X/day as long as there are no side effects. If I experience side effects after an increase in dosing, I cut back to previously tolerated dose.

[speckythecky]

I believe that a certain little blue pill has a good effect on combatting jet lag.

Having never used it, I can't be sure but it probably takes your mind off the jet lag:D

[spudulike]

Hi there, we broke the journey up each time with a short stopover (Singapore/Hong Kong). I didn't sleep on any flight and just went to bed/ate meals etc at normal times so didn't really feel jet lagged at all. Oddly enough I find it harder flying towards the UK than to NZ and other people I've spoken to feel the same..... :confused: The hardest part of a long haul flight to get over is all the bugs you pick up from the circulated air!

Either way, it'll only last a day or two and will be worth it when you get there.

L

[DMcG]

I'm a chronic insomniac, so waking up at 2 in the morning and not being able to get back to sleep is nothing new for me :( I very rarely manage to sleep on planes and I've found that if you can manage to keep going for as long as possible once you arrive, it helps immensely. That way I'm normally so exhausted I can sleep for a good seven or eight hours before waking up again - which puts me a lot closer to the local time.

Bizarrely, I find smaller time shifts much more difficult to handle than huge ones. It takes at least a month for my body clock to shift forward and back through summer time changes.

Dougie

[mgbridges]

I just put my watch to destination time as soon as I get on the plane and try to stick to that, no matter what the cabin crew do in terms of dimming lights etc. I rarely sleep on planes (too tall) but I've not done bad at all the last couple of times I've done the (very) long haul between the UK and NZ.

Martin

[dilanium]

I rarely sleep on planes (too tall) but I've not done bad at all the last couple of times I've done the (very) long haul between the UK and NZ.


You bring up something else I'm concerned about. I'm quite tall myself, and on in country flights across the US I get very uncomfortable.

When we fly to NZ we won't be able to afford anything other than economy, will I need to request certain seat number to be comfortable? (In the US I generally request emergency aisle or by the bulkhead)

[mgbridges]

To be honest, these days it's better than it used to be in terms of seat pitch (the distance between rows). I wasn't particularly uncomfortable at any point on the flight down from the UK and I'm 6'5" (about 1.96m in metric!). My main complaint was the hardness of the seats (I flew with Emirates). Does anyone know of a good cushion I can buy??

Requesting the exit row or bulkhead seats is always an option, although your chances are not good (I never seem to get them). One thing that is worth doing is checking out http://www.seatguru.com/. This is a website that has the seating plans for all the configurations of aircraft flown by the major airlines. It points out which are good and bad seats. For example, the window seats on Emirates can have restricted legroom because the box for the TV is under the seat in front. You may not get the seat you ask for but it helps you become more informed.

Hope this helps.

Martin

[dilanium]

I feel your pain-- I'm 6'3". from looking at the flights from the US, it looks like the cheapest for me is Air NZ. Worse comes to worse I'll sit in a aisle seat and take the aisle over.

[KD17]

Being an energy therapist and my thoughts are the reason why a person suffers jet lag is because their energy system is still "tuned in" to the place they were last. There is a very simple technique I use, which I've found to be very successful, which is to tap on meridian points.

To do this you set your watch to the time zone you are going into as soon as possible, preferably in the departure lounge. Then every couple of hours tap on the meridian point associated with that time zone. The meridian points can be on the foot, hand, leg, knee etc. It doesn't matter if you fall asleep though a meridian time change, you just tap on the meridian point for the time you are in when you wake up.

It saves taking any pills or potions. it may look a little querky, but quite frankly I'm personally beyond that now, if something helps then I'll go with it.

You tap each Meridian about 20 times.

But it's not everything for everybody, and being unique we all react differently to different techniques. I am tuned into energies, which may be one of the reasons why this works for me.

Recently I successfully used EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) tapping for fear of flying and was tapping on the lady next to me who was terrified of take off and landings. After a short tapping session (on the plane) she had virtually lost this fear. In a proper therapy session under normal circumstances, I would be fairly confident to be able to cure this.


Debby