Jet Lag Is Part Of Life For Frequent Fliers

Dealing with jet lag is not too hard for those of us who only fly once in a while, perhaps once or twice a year on holiday or for the odd business trip, but for aircrews and regular long-haul fliers, jet lag often brings several health problems which can become more or less permanent.

Long-haul travelers will be familiar with the disturbance to their sleep pattern and the insomnia that can be produced by a long trip, in addition to such things as changes in mood, irritability, stomach problems and difficulty in handling information. But, for the very frequent flyer these often transient symptoms become a part of everyday life and are regularly joined by menstrual cycle problems for women and also by short-term psychiatric disturbances for a few individuals. So how do you go about managing jet lag?

The main factors that influence the degree of jet lag that you experience, apart from how often you travel, are the distances traveled, the direction in which you travel and your age.

If you regularly travel across only two or three world time zones then any affects will probably be very mild. But, as soon as you start to cross more than three 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 noticeable when you are traveling east and tend to affect you less when flying west. If you travel from London to Singapore on holiday for instance you will experience more jet lag when you arrive in Singapore at the start of your holiday than you will in London when you return home.

In general when you fly east you can expect that jet lag will last for a few days and a good guide is approximately two thirds of the number of time zones crossed. For example, if you cross six time zones you may expect jet lag to affect you for up to four days. When flying west jet lag could be expected to last about half of this time.

Age is also a significant factor when it comes to jet lag and, as you get older, you will discover that you are affected more and more by jet lag.

A true jet lag cure does not exist but there is a lot that you can do to help in reducing jet lag symptoms.