Normally, in healthy people, core temperature reaches a low point between 3am and 5am, when most people are asleep, and starts rising gradually about 6am, peaking in midday, when most people are fully awake.
There is a second dip in mid-afternoon, the traditional siesta time, prompting those who can to take naps and others to find some caffeine or go for a run to help them get through the day.
The biological disruptions of jet lag are made worse by the fatigue induced by a long flight — the many hours spent in a cramped, dehydrating environment where the air is bone-dry and low on oxygen, the food can be worse than dreadful, and the opportunity for on-board exercise is ever more restricted, in part by security concerns.
TO LESSEN THE TRAUMA
If possible, go a day or two early to give the body time to adjust a little.
These are some important tips for the trip:
— Request an aisle seat when you make your reservation.
— Start out well rested and well hydrated.
— Wear comfortable, nonrestricting clothing.
— En route, drink lots and lots of water.
— Avoid alcohol and caffeine (they are dehydrating).
— Get up to use the lavatory or to ask the flight attendant for water as often as possible, taking the long way around the aisles.
— Try to sleep during the time it is night at your destination. A low-dose sleeping pill or a three-milligram tablet of melatonin, or both, can help.
On arriving in Australia, for instance, day is night and night is day for a New Yorker. But I did not want to spend my vacation days in bed.
I consulted Alfred Lewy, a psychiatrist and an expert on body clock adjustments at Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland. Based on my travel schedule, he e-mailed me a detailed "prescription" for taking, alternately, very low and higher doses of melatonin and taking in and avoiding sunlight depending on the time of day at my origin and destination.
It was so complicated that I gave up the dosing schedule within two days. I resorted to a few time-honored techniques. Melatonin and a sleeping pill helped me get through an uncomfortable night on the plane.
I landed in Sydney in the morning, had a late breakfast with strong coffee (the Liverpool scientists mentioned the drug modafinil as an alternative stimulant) and went for an exploratory walk in the city. Following Lewy's advice, I wore sunglasses until midafternoon, then had a hour or more of unprotected sunlight to help my internal clock learn to stay awake through an Australian day.
An early dinner was followed by an earlier-than-usual bedtime, aided by a 3-milligram dose of melatonin before retiring and a 0.3-milligram dose every time I awoke before 5am, as Lewy had suggested.
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