The summer holiday season is with us again and many thousands of us will be jetting off to far flung corners of the globe to lie on a tropical beach and soak up the sun, to trek through some of world's most beautiful wilderness countryside, to see some of the architectural wonders of the world or to simply explore new countries and cultures. And, unfortunately, many thousands of us will find the first few days of our vacation will also see us trying to recover from the effects of jet lag. But is jet lag an inevitable part of modern long-haul travel? The answer to this question depends very much on where you are flying to. If you start your journey in Sydney, Australia and fly to Tokyo, Japan then you will not experience any jet lag at all because, even though you are flying some 7,000 miles, your journey essentially takes you due north so that your starting point and destination lie in the same time zone. However, if you fly from Sydney to London, England then you will fly east to west across ten standard time zones and you will certainly experience jet lag. Jet lag is really nothing more than the result of your own internal body clock being out of synchronization with local time and, while your body clock can adjust itself to come into line with local time, adjusting your body clock takes time. If you fly across just two or three time zones then the time difference experienced is small enough that you probably will not really notice it greatly and your internal clock will adjust quite quickly. However, if you fly across four or more time zones then the difference will be noticeable and your body clock will take longer and longer to adjust as you cross more and more time zones. In our example of flying from Sydney to London your body clock will take several days to adjust itself fully and, in the meantime, you are likely to find yourself suffering from insomnia, finding it difficult to get to sleep at night and to get up in the morning, feeling tired during the day, possibly experiencing difficulty in eating with nausea, stomach upset, a feeling of dehydration, a headache, and much more. So what can be done? There are a whole variety of 'traditional' remedies for jet lag including diets, formulas, over-the-counter medication, sleeping pills, melatonin and others and each has its supporters and detractors, but are these 'traditional' remedies the answer? The simple answer to this question is no. These 'traditional' remedies do not work and, in some cases, will actually make your jet lag worse. Treating jet lag is not a matter of pills and formulas, but requires you to devise a plan centered on your specific travel plans and lifestyle which allows you to assist your body's natural process of adjusting its own internal body clock. This means taking a series of steps in preparation for your journey, as well as during your flight and at your destination. In some cases these will be enough to help you avoid jet lag altogether and, in others, they will certainly help to reduce the effects of jet lag considerably.
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