Jetlag: how the body adapts after a flight and what to do about it

Poor health and insom­nia after a flight is often per­ceived as a nat­ur­al con­di­tion, the result of fatigue. How­ev­er, jet­lag (sleep dis­tur­bance dur­ing the adap­ta­tion of the body when chang­ing sev­er­al time zones) is now includ­ed in the Inter­na­tion­al Clas­si­fi­ca­tion of Dis­eases. How such a con­di­tion man­i­fests itself, why it devel­ops and why it is dan­ger­ous, Med­AboutMe under­stood.

Causes of poor adaptation during jet lag

The life of the organ­ism is rigid­ly sub­or­di­nat­ed to cir­ca­di­an rhythms — the dai­ly change of day and night. The process­es that occur in the dark and light time dif­fer sig­nif­i­cant­ly. First of all, var­i­ous hor­mones are pro­duced — in the dark, mela­tonin is syn­the­sized, which is respon­si­ble for sleep, and in sun­light, the pro­duc­tion of sero­tonin increas­es, which helps a per­son stay alert and stress-resis­tant. For the nor­mal func­tion­ing of the body, peri­ods of dark­ness and light must alter­nate and last for a cer­tain time.

When chang­ing two or more time zones, the usu­al cir­ca­di­an rhythms of a per­son do not cor­re­spond to the change of day and night in a new place. This is what leads to the fact that the body needs a seri­ous adap­ta­tion, and until it is rebuilt, jet lag occurs — a sleep dis­or­der.

Nor­mal­ly, addic­tion lasts no more than a few days. How­ev­er, peo­ple who fly fre­quent­ly can suf­fer from chron­ic jet lag — in which a per­son­’s adap­ta­tion to new con­di­tions does not ful­ly occur. Seri­ous vio­la­tions also occur in those who have changed 6 or more time zones.

Doc­tors note that jet lag is a prob­lem that occurs not only dur­ing flights. So, the desyn­chro­niza­tion of bio­rhythms and the real change of day and night occurs in the fol­low­ing sit­u­a­tions:

• Night shift work.
• Changeover to summer/winter time.
• Chang­ing the dai­ly rou­tine on the week­end (week­end jet lag).

At the same time, slight fluc­tu­a­tions, in 1–2 hours, only in some groups of peo­ple lead to desyn­chro­niza­tion and the man­i­fes­ta­tion of char­ac­ter­is­tic symp­toms.

Sleep disturbances and other symptoms

The main symp­tom of jet lag is a dis­rup­tion in sleep and wake­ful­ness. So, a per­son may feel tired, over­whelmed, but he can­not fall asleep — as soon as he is in bed, unchar­ac­ter­is­tic cheer­ful­ness aris­es. Dur­ing the adap­ta­tion peri­od, sleep will be inad­e­quate, patients com­plain of the fol­low­ing symp­toms:

• Pro­longed drowsi­ness with­out falling asleep, some­times last­ing until dawn.
• Increased motor activ­i­ty dur­ing sleep.
• Emo­tion­al, ner­vous state in the evening.
• Super­fi­cial sleep, which is inter­rupt­ed by any stim­u­lus — sound, light source, and more.
• Fre­quent awak­en­ings, sev­er­al times a night, after which it is dif­fi­cult to fall asleep.
• Feel­ing of weak­ness in the morn­ing, inad­e­quate sleep.

Adjust­ing to a new time zone is often accom­pa­nied by oth­er symp­toms. Among them:

• Weak­ness.
• Irri­tabil­i­ty.
• Vio­la­tion of ori­en­ta­tion in space.
• For­get­ful­ness.
• Poor con­cen­tra­tion.
• Bad appetite.
• Diges­tive dis­or­ders — diar­rhea, con­sti­pa­tion, nau­sea.
• Dizzi­ness.

In chron­ic jet lag, which occurs in peo­ple who are forced to fly fre­quent­ly, the symp­toms increase, severe dis­or­ders begin to appear. First of all, hor­mones suf­fer — a lack of mela­tonin affects the entire endocrine sys­tem. Var­i­ous prob­lems with the thy­roid gland are often man­i­fest­ed, and women have men­stru­al irreg­u­lar­i­ties. Chron­ic lack of sleep and irri­tabil­i­ty lead to depres­sion, and patients also com­plain of headaches, mus­cle weak­ness, and high blood pres­sure.

Risk Factors for Poor Adjustment

The main risk fac­tor for severe adap­ta­tion is a sud­den change of 6 or more time zones or sim­ply fre­quent flights. Peo­ple with such a sched­ule are often diag­nosed with chron­ic jet lag, which does not go away for 3 or more months.

How fast a per­son will adapt to a new regime of chang­ing day and night depends on oth­er fac­tors. So, for exam­ple, in healthy young peo­ple (20–30 years old), symp­toms after one flight may not appear at all. But for the elder­ly and chil­dren, chang­ing time zones is dif­fi­cult.

Oth­er fac­tors that exac­er­bate jet lag include:

• Gen­er­al health.
• Endocrine dis­eases — hor­mon­al dis­or­ders will affect the pro­duc­tion of the sleep hor­mone mela­tonin.
• Sea­son. In sum­mer, jet lag is the eas­i­est.
• Sea­son dif­fer­ence. Chang­ing cli­mat­ic con­di­tions exac­er­bate the over­all adap­ta­tion.
• Flight direc­tion. For most peo­ple, mov­ing from west to east is less well tol­er­at­ed.
• Drink­ing alco­hol, cof­fee, overeat­ing dur­ing the flight.

How to make it easier for a person to adapt to jetlag

It is impos­si­ble to com­plete­ly get rid of jet lag, espe­cial­ly when it comes to fre­quent or long flights. How­ev­er, it is quite real­is­tic to make sure that the adap­ta­tion of a per­son takes place as quick­ly as pos­si­ble. To do this, you should fol­low these rules:

A few days before the flight, start shift­ing the regime in the direc­tion of the one that will be in the new place — ear­li­er or, con­verse­ly, go to bed lat­er. If the sched­ule can be adjust­ed for at least three hours, the adap­ta­tion will be much faster.

• Refuse cof­fee, alco­hol and ener­gy drinks at least a day before the trip. Com­plete­ly exclude them dur­ing the flight.
• You should not con­stant­ly sit on an air­plane, it is impor­tant to get up at least a few times and walk around the cab­in, stretch your mus­cles.
• If you have to change more than 10 time zones, it is best to break the flight into sev­er­al parts, ide­al­ly spend one day at an inter­me­di­ate point.
• Upon arrival at a new place, you need to try to imme­di­ate­ly turn on the new mode. If it is morn­ing, you should not go to bed, and if it is evening, on the con­trary, lie down and rest in the dark for at least a few hours.
• On the first night, it is impor­tant to pro­vide com­fort­able con­di­tions for sleep — turn off gad­gets, close the cur­tains tight­ly, ask that no one dis­turb you.
• The first day should be spent in a gen­tle mode, do not plan long trips, it is bet­ter to aban­don the beach, in extreme cas­es, go to the sea or ocean for a few hours in the morn­ing or evening.

The hormone melatonin and other drugs

In some cas­es, doc­tors rec­om­mend med­ical treat­ment for jet lag. And of course, hor­mones play a key role here. So, tak­ing mela­tonin helps to quick­ly get rid of insom­nia. Such sup­port is per­fect for those who make fre­quent flights, such as pilots and flight atten­dants. How­ev­er, it must be remem­bered that mela­tonin can only solve the prob­lem for a few days, in fact, it does not improve adap­ta­tion, but sim­ply relieves sleep dis­tur­bance. There­fore, this way of deal­ing with jet lag is ide­al if a per­son changes the time zone for 2–3 days, and then returns to his usu­al envi­ron­ment.

Doc­tors say that jet lag can exac­er­bate chron­ic dis­eases, so you should def­i­nite­ly take all the nec­es­sary med­i­cines on a trip. Stress sig­nif­i­cant­ly exac­er­bates var­i­ous sleep dis­or­ders, so peo­ple who are prone to excite­ment in a new place and in a new envi­ron­ment, it is bet­ter to take calm­ing drugs with them. But doc­tors rec­om­mend to refuse the use of sleep­ing pills.