Overcoming jet lag is not too hard for those of us who fly only occasionally, possibly just a couple of times a year on vacation or for the occasional business trip, but for aircrews and regular long-haul fliers, jet lag can bring several health problems that can become virtually permanent.
Long-haul fliers will be more than familiar with the disturbance to their sleep pattern and the insomnia that can result from a long trip, in addition to things like changes in mood, irritability, stomach problems and difficulty in handling information. However, for very frequent fliers these normally transient symptoms are a part of everyday life and are habitually joined by menstrual cycle problems for women and also by short-term psychiatric difficulties for a number of individuals.
The major factors in influencing the degree of jet lag that you experience, apart from how often you travel, are the distances traveled, the direction of travel and your age.
If you are regularly traveling across just one or two world time zones then any affects will probably be very mild. However, once you start to cross more than three world time zones, and especially once you get up to frequently traveling across six or more time zones, jet lag symptoms will start to increase significantly.
The symptoms of jet lag are also more evident when you are traveling east and tend to affect you less if you fly west. If you fly from London to Singapore on vacation for example you will experience greater jet lag on arrival in Singapore at the beginning of your holiday than you will in London when you return.
Generally when you fly east you can expect jet lag to last for a few days and a good guide here is about two thirds of the number of time zones traveled across. For example, if you fly across six time zones you may expect jet lag to affect you for roughly four days. If you are flying west jet lag could be expected to last about half this time.
Age is also an important consideration when it comes to jet lag and, as your age increases, you will find that you are affected more and more by jet lag.
A true jet lag cure does not exist although there is a lot that can be done to assist in reducing jet lag symptoms.
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