This was published 6 years ago
Jet lag: The trick to beating the nightmare
By Lee Tulloch
A melatonin supplement a couple of hours before you want to sleep may
I'm one of those oddballs who likes to get up early, even in winter when a 5am start means there's no light for a couple of hours.
It's amazing how much clarity of thought I have when everyone else's brainwaves are resting (and my resident possum is not yet back in the roof.)
So I don't get too distressed if I find myself awake early when I travel. This happens more often than not, due to the disruption to circadian rhythms that flying across time zones can bring. If you're not a morning person, though, you might find it tough going.
Always remember an eye mask.Credit: iStock
It's not just the fragmentary nature of long-haul travel that plays havoc with sleep. How many of us, exhausted beyond exhaustion, still find ourselves wide awake at 2am in a new destination, simply because we're so excited to be there?
I try to savour that emotion rather than knock it unconscious with drugs.
I'm no expert on jet lag and I still don't understand it. Sometimes I don't have it at all. The time of arrival and departure matters (try to arrive in the afternoon or evening) but sometimes a flight just knocks me flat despite all precautions and I have to assume other factors such as diet and stress are in play.
Travelling east is supposed to be worse because of mathematical calculations relating to the length of our circadian rhythms. Scientific studies of travellers with bipolar disorder show that those who travel from the west tend to be manic and those who travel from the east depressed, so perhaps flying to the east creates a manic phase that disturbs natural sleep.
But I'm rarely jet lagged going Sydney to New York, for instance, probably because of a night-time arrival.
It's not ideal to be falling asleep in your soup when dining with locals who are well adjusted to the time. But I find getting too het up about when I'm awake and when I'm sleepy just adds to the aggravation and leads to some bad choices in remedies.
Taking a massive sleeping pill at 3am is not always the right choice in my experience. It can last through the day and set up a time-lag pattern that takes days to break.
A melatonin supplement a couple of hours before you want to sleep may be better – it advances your internal clock and makes it possible to fall asleep earlier. If you take it in the morning it tricks your brain into thinking you've slept longer.
The rule of thumb is this – travel east and you'll need morning light and evening melatonin; travel west and you'll need evening light and morning melatonin. But there's a hitch – nightmares. Many of us suffer from lurid dreams when taking melatonin. Even on a low dose of one milligram (and I don't need more) I find my REM sleep is, shall we say, interesting.
For those with long-term sleep disorders there is chronotherapy, where bedtime and rising time are moved later and later each day, around the clock, until a person is sleeping on a normal schedule. Patients are exposed to bright lights at increasingly earlier times in the morning, so that it becomes easier to fall as asleep at night. Some of these techniques, such as getting as much sunlight as you can when you arrive, can be handy for travellers.
Then there's cryotherapy, which is offered at some high-end spas. This is a (thankfully) concentrated, one-off treatment, where patients spend 10 seconds in a chamber at minus 60 degrees and then 30-second segments in a chamber at minus 160 degrees, up to three minutes. It is supposed to shock you out of jet lag. It would certainly shock. I'd rather be up all night, frankly.
Many hotels offer sleep solutions such as air purifiers, dawn simulator alarm clocks and sleep "concierges" but I've never been convinced. We have titanium-strength jet lag coming from Australia and these practices seem ineffectual to me.
Planning your flight carefully and being rigorous about eating and sleeping on the plane in a way that reflects your destination is probably more useful.
If you're plagued by a sleepless night in a new destination, don't despair. Enjoy the novelty of it, even if you have a partner on a different circadian rhythm. Night-time hours and daytime hours are all part of life.
Oh – and bring a good eye mask. That's my secret trick.
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