Navigating jet lag

The price we pay for crossing time zones

Around the start of the 20th century, my great-grandfather, Henry Grey Granger, boarded a ship in Southampton, England, and went to South Africa. He was 18 years old.

Henry spent the rest of his life in South Africa, but he travelled to his family in England every few years: he was the oldest of 14 children and all his siblings remained in England. He would venture further too – Egypt and several European countries.

Slow travel

He did it all by ship, each journey taking several weeks. This was slow travel in all ways. There was no other way to do it. And it wasn’t that long ago.

Our lifetimes overlapped for a few years. I clearly remember this tall, very kind “old Grandpa”, and I marvelled that I knew someone who was born in the 1800s.

I’ve been thinking about Henry and the way he travelled – not just because I admire his spirit of adventure, but because I’ve just got through another bout of jet lag. I doubt Henry ever heard of jet lag. If he had, he would have found out everything he could. He had that kind of enquiring mind.

A modern thing

Jet lag is as old as the first long-distance commercial flight. This podcast, called How Jet Lag Works, dates the start of the Jet Age to 1958. It describes how the shock of quickly crossing many time zones disrupts biological functions, and it gives it a name: desynchronosis. Basically, our bodies do not know what’s going on.

Long-distance air travel zooms us across time zones and plays havoc with our natural body clock (our circadian rhythm). If you are travelling across more than two or three time zones, you are extremely likely to get jet lag. And it appears that some get it worse than others, depending on how close your body clock aligns with a 24-hour cycle – I swear I am one of them.

A twilight zone

The rule of thumb, I’m told, is that it will take you a day or a day and a half to recover per time zone crossed. It took me more than two weeks to recover from a flight from San Francisco (nine time zones) via Frankfurt to Johannesburg. It’s taken me even longer to recover from travelling from Sydney to Johannesburg (11 time zones).

Long-distance flights in the same time zone (ish), like from South Africa to Europe, make me tired, I guess, from being cooped up for 11 hours or more. But that is not jet lag.

I experience it as a twilight time. I forget everything, get woozy and wobbly, sleep atrociously, and get muddled – about everything.

Here to stay

But air travel is here to stay and jet lag is a price we pay. I wholeheartedly agree that we should be mindful of environmental impacts of air travel. But there will be times we travel – to get to precious people and important events.

I’ve definitely noticed that it’s worse when travelling west to east – say, from the US to South Africa. The suggestion in the podcast is to start going to bed an hour earlier each day for about five days before travelling west to east. Then expose yourself to a light box to wake up earlier and earlier each morning. For east to west, do the opposite: keep yourself awake (use a light box) later each night.

I’m not sure I would go to that extent, but I know a person or two who do!

Getting by with a little help

There are plenty of jet lag experts out there, and I am not one of them. But I have found a few things that help me get through both the flights and the jet lag:

1. Immediately set the clock on your phone or watch to the time at your destination when you get on the plane.
2. On the flight, stay hydrated (with water rather than wine and coffee – although I think that’s okay in small amounts). Avoid heavy meals.
3. Walk up the aisle every few hours. Find a spot, usually near the galley or toilets, where you can stretch.
4. If something helps you sleep for, say, three or four hours, then go for it. Do check for contraindications with other meds even if you’re using melatonin.
5. But don’t knock yourself out with heavy sedatives. You need to get up and move every few hours! The podcast talks about a woman who slept for seven hours on a flight and suffered a fatal thrombosis.
6. On the matter of circulation, consider wearing compression socks! They really do help in reducing swelling of your feet (and the likelihood of thrombosis). These days, you can find a large variety of these socks and they are not fuddy-duddy at all. I put mine on just before I board.
7. If you can’t sleep on the flight – it happens – try not to stress. Grab your earphones and watch movies and series or listen to podcasts to your heart’s content. On a very long flight, you could watch an entire series or even two. Or you could read an entire book. Sit back and relax.
8. When you get to your destination, expose yourself to natural light, especially first thing in the morning. Leave off the sunglasses. Get out and go for a walk. You are resetting your body clock.

Most important, in the befuddlement of jet lag, keep in mind that it IS temporary. It will pass. Happy travelling!