Presentation: Fighting the Jet Lag

Fighting the Jet Lag

Today I want to tell you about a human’s physical condition which is called jet lag.

When me and my family arrived to Canada, we experienced that condition. I think all of us felt that, because we all arrived from other far countries. We woke up very early and slept early, and we adapted after a few days.

Human organism works according to special cycle - Circadian cycle. It coordinates our biology and behavior. Circadian clock is the central mechanism which drives circadian rhythm.

The term circadian came from the Latin circa (about) diem (a day).

Long time ago, during experiments, people were closed in a dark room, they did not know if it was day or night. And it was found that they didn’t run to exactly 24 hour cycle, it was about 24.2 hours.

When the human is in normal conditions, when he can see day and night, his body clock works with a period of exactly 24 hours. When the body’s circadian rhythm and environment’s cycle don’t match, that condition is  called Jet lag. It appears when you change the time zone.

Jet lag symptoms depend on the number of times zones crossed. Most people only experience the symptoms of jet lag after crossing at least three time zones.

Jet lag symptoms could be: loss of appetite, difficulty concentrating, feeling disorientated, insomnia, memory problems, confusion, headache and many others.

Before jet lag was considered a psychical disease, but now it is not, because its symptoms disappear themselves in a short time, but it is still a big problem for many travellers.

Scientists have discovered that it is possible to influence on body’s circadian clock with flashes of light. That flashes are similar to a camera flash. They tested the method in 39 volunteers in 2 groups. First group included 31 people, who were exposed to a series of two-millisecond light flashes with changing intervals while sleeping. Their cycle was shifted on 2 hours. Second group included 8 people who were exposed to 60 minutes of continuous bright light. Their cycle was shifted only on 36 minutes.

For traveling East-to-West, your system should be shifted to a later time. For this light during the first few hours of the night is needed.

For moving your system to an earlier time, when travelling West-to-East, light during the last few hours of the night is needed.

So, you can change circadian timing while sleeping, without interfering your sleep.

There are no methodology or guide is available yet, so it is too early for the travellers to try this themselves.
                         Feedback