260
TRANSAERO №10 October 2013
E N G L I S H Health
In Search of Lost Time In both movies and reality there is a price to pay for enjoying superhuman powers. After crossing half the world by plane in just a few hours, we can expect to suffer some repercussions. Although it is hardly possible to completely avoid them, there are some things we can do to reduce their effects on us. NATALYA INSHAKOVA SHAMIL GAR AEV
AN ALASKAN BASEBALL TEAM THROUGHOUT THEIR TWENTYYEAR HISTORY HAD MANАGED TO WIN ONLY 28 MATCHES. The reason was not that players and coaches didn’t know the game. On the contrary, when they played at home their talent and skills had been repeatedly praised by commentators. In all their away games, however, when the team had to travel far and to do so frequently, their performance dramatically dropped. Dozens of American scientists followed the team for three years and came to the rather unusual conclusion that the team’s constant jetlag was to blame for their poor performance. Jetlag is an informal term commonly used to describe the effects of traveling across timezones. The name “twentiethcentury disease”, however trite, suits this malaise well. Until the 1950’s, before the arrival of passenger jet aircrafts, this health problem had not come into existence. traveling by carriage, ship or even train didn’t involve crossing ten different time-zones in a day. Passengers’ body clocks, thus, remained intact. Explaining Jetlag: Theory Life according to a timetable Our internal clock is an actual organ which goes by the complex name “suprachiasmatic nucleus”. This group of neurons is situated in the hypothalamus and is responsible for controlling our circadian rhythms; in other words, the biological rhythms we humans live by. It works as follows: visual receptors tell the brain the time of day, whether it is day or night, and the brain, in turn, gives the rest of our body appropriate orders. For instance, our large intestine is most active at dawn, our gallbladder and liver at night, whereas our reproductive system is so in the evening. More than 500 processes in a human body are directly related to the time of day, including our body temperature and mood. Even the single-hour
shift of daylight saving time can be quite detrimental to our well-being. According to the German research institute Forsa, more than half of Europeans experience a type of sleep disorder and the aggravation of chronic medical conditions after the clocks are adjusted a mere hour forward. Imagine the consequences of a flight from Moscow to Los-Angeles, two cities with a 12 hour difference! Time travel The term “time-zone change syndrome” speaks for itself: to experience jetlag you have to cross a number of time-zones. This is why it is much easier to recover after a ten-hour trip from Moscow to the Seychelles, two locations within the same time-zone, rather than after a four-hour flight from Moscow to London. Desynchronosis usually occurs after a change of three or more time-zones, although some travelers can experience discomfort after traveling across even one time-zone. Numerous studies have shown that adjustment to the new time-zone is easier for east-to-west travel than from west-to-east. Massachusetts
University scientists spent three years monitoring football players traveling across the country. It became evident that if an away team traveled westto-east, it was on the losing side in 70% of matches, whereas east-to-west flights had no effect on the game’s outcome. According to Prof. William Schwartz, who supervised the study, westward flights made the days longer, while flights to the east shortened them. A tourist arriving in Moscow from Beijing will have to go to bed and set the alarm four hours earlier than usual – and will probably fail to fall asleep, but will have to get up anyway . Swiss scientists claim that it takes 20% less time to recover from a trip to the west than to the east. Time disease The Australian Hawke Research Institute estimated that losses from jetlag total up to 70 billion dollars annually. Business people are late for their meetings, bankers scuttle the deals and students fail their exams. All this occurs because the complications of jetlag are far more serious than those of simple tiredness.
Jetlag is often confused with travel fatigue, but they actually have little in common. In 2007 the Research Institute for Sport and Exercise Science in Liverpool conducted an extensive research and interviewed thousands of travelers with the intention of specifying the main differences between jetlag and travel fatigue. The common signs of travel fatigue are tiredness, headache, dehydration, and muscular pain caused by preflight furore, lack of sleep, the long time spent in the aircraft’s cramped space and the dryness of airplane’s air. Fortunately, after a good night’s sleep and a healthy meal the effects of travel fatigue disappear. True jetlag, however, has different symptoms. First of all, it affects sleep in a number of ways: trouble falling asleep, sleep disruption, early awakening if traveling west and late, if traveling east. A second category of symptoms involve failing to concentrate, a hazy mind and the almost complete inability to perform mental tasks. Jetlag also brings about problems with digestion: diarrhea or constipation,
262
TRANSAERO №10 October 2013
nausea, and increased or reduced interest in food. Interestingly, people over 60 have less trouble adjusting to a change of time-zone than younger generations. As the years pass our body clock begins to malfunction, upsetting our daily rhythms and as a result the body can adapt more easily to a new schedule. Furthermore, jetlag has a greater effect on women than men: female hormone regulation is closely linked to the human sleep cycle, which gets interrupted by a flight that crosses three or more time-zones. The most popular formula for calculating the duration of jetlag is one day per time-zone crossed. However, Liverpool Research Institute’s scientific team insists that jetlag depends on the direction of travel. When travelling to the west the adjustment takes, in days, approximately half the number of time-zones crossed; in the case of traveling east, jetlag lasts two-thirds of the number of time-zones. It might sound complicated, but it really isn’t. If you fly from Moscow to Dublin (-3 hours), it will take a day and a half to recover. But if your destination is the Philippines (+5 hours) be prepared for approximately four days of suffering. Interestingly, adjustment on arrival home is especially difficult. According to a comprehensive poll organized by Budget Travel, the process of getting back toе your daily routine in addition to adjusting to the shift in time-zones is far more difficult to handle than suffering from jetlag on a health resort. Practical Remedies The light side The main remedy for jetlag is not caffeine, as some might think, but sunlight.There is nothing better than sunlight to help the body comprehend the time of day. For the first couple of days following your arrival at your destination try to spend as much time as possible outdoors. Leading the life of a caveman by rising at dawn and sleeping after sunset will work wonders for getting rid of that jetlag. Prof. Stephen Laukley, who consults NASA on coping mechanisms for desynchronosis, offers a little trick. If you have arrived in the west, he recommends, that you spend most of your evening in the light, in order to “postpone” the night. If, on the other hand, you are in the east, try to create darkness by wearing sunglasses, for instance. In both cases you must convince your brain that night has arrived before heading to sleep: draw the curtains or cover every light source. Even the blink of a smartphone can be enough to disturb the jetlagexhausted body.
E N G L I S H Health
Time waits It really is not very easy to “just start living by the local time”, a piece of advice commonly offered to travelers. If you have a long trip in store (say you are traveling in a week or more), try following the recommendation offered by the University of Maryland Medical Center: think ahead and gradually start switching your internal clock. A week before the trip move your supper down an hour or so, and go to bed later if you are traveling west, or earlier, if you are traveling east. As soon as you board the plane adjust your watch to the local time of your destination and if it is already night there, try to get some sleep. In any case, most doctors agree that sleeping on the plane will do no harm and will help ease overall stress. The advice “live by the local time” should be taken quite literally. So, if it is already morning at your destination, but still evening at home, you should proceed with your complete morning routine in order to help your body tune in to your new time-zone: have breakfast, exercise, take a walk. Sometimes, however, no matter how strange it might sound, it makes sense not to bother adjusting to the local time at all. Prof. Jim Waterhouse, who studies biorhythms at John Moores University, believes that there is no need to traumatize your body if you are crossing less than three time-zones and staying at your destination for less than a week. In this case, protect your body from unnecessary disruption by not adjusting your watch and keeping your “home schedule”. Regular exercise After sunlight, physical exercise is the second most effective tool in combating jetlag. A study by the University of Toronto has shown that people with a healthy lifestyle tend to take half the time to adjust to their new time-zone compared to those who disregard any type of physical activity. Physical exercise can be extremely effective in helping your inner clock adjust. Exercise accelerates blood circulation and metabolism, prompting the heart to beat faster and raising body temperature. When flying east it is better to exercise in the morning; if you are heading west, prefer hitting the gym in the second half of the day. However, make sure not to engage in any physical activity in the evening as it might upset your sleeping schedule. For the first few days take care of your diet: stay away from exotic food so as to not aggravate any possible digestion problems. It is always better to keep a diet, which
will help you recover. If your aim is to not fall asleep, eat food rich in protein such as meat, poultry, dairy products, and nuts. These take longer to digest and therefore keep your body alert for longer. In addition to protein, other food sources that can help you overcome sleepiness are natural energy drinks such as beet and apricot juices, wheat extract and kombucha (a product made from tea mushroom). These energize the body without dehydrating it by increasing the blood circulation. To get rid of insomnia choose complex carbohydrates like brown rice, pasta, and fruit. Bringing out the heavy artillery Many travelers do not bother with sunlight or diets and turn to more efficient means straight away. There are myriad of pills to combat jetlag, but not all of them are safe and effective. Most contain varying proportions of melatonin, a hormone responsible for the day/ night switch in our bodies. It is recommended to take these pills in the evening in order to ensure healthy sleeping patterns by local time. Numerous studies have shown melatonin’s effectiveness, but no firm evidence exists regarding the consequences of its long-term consumption. Homeopathic medicine is also an option – arnica, gelsemium and anamirta. Their combination known as ‘No Jetlag Remedy’ is very popular in Europe and the US. An even better solution is to take along a packet of herbs from your home – sweet clover, mint, dandelion and origanum – and brew them daily before heading to sleep. They will do the job just as well as any storebought remedy. One last tip: upon arrival to your destination try to lift your spirit ,to cheer yourself. Endorphines, also known as happiness hormones, stimulate blood circulation, have a positive effect on the brain and speed up the adjustment of your inner clock. You could visit a spa, buy yourself something nice, a knick-knack, or simply have a chocolate – cocoa and B vitamins can also help you get over the post-flight stress. One last tip: upon arrival to your destination try to lift your spirits, to cheer yourself up. Endorphines, also known as happiness harmones, stimulate blood circulation, have a positive effect on the brain and speed up the adjustment of your inner clock. You could visit a spa, buy yourself a treat, a knickknack or simply indulge in some chocolate – cocoa and B vitamins are known to help combat post-flight stress.
N O TA B E N E Three ways to worsen your jetlag: 1 Take sleeping pills. They will immerse your body into unnatural oblivion and deprive you of the chance to naturally adjust to a new sleeping rhythm. 2 Drink a lot of coffee or alcohol. Caffeine and alcohol dehydrate the body and undermine the brain’s efficiency by upsetting its inner clock. 3 Plunge into work immediately. Hard mental and psychological work considerably aggravate jetlag. Three ways to minimize the effects of jetlag: 1 Change planes. If you face a long trip, try to break the journey down into two shorter flights. For example, arrange a connection in Paris on your way to Rio and enjoy the French capital for a day or two. It is easier to gradually adjust to time differences. 2 Drink lots of water. Dehydration affects brain function and extends jetlag. 3 Take along your personal belongings. Pyjamas, your favorite shower gel, an aromatic candle or even your prefered pillow. Things from home will help you adapt to your new surroundings and can lift your spirits.