Do you feel disoriented, irritable, and fatigued as soon as you landed on the tarmac of another country? Will it result to swollen legs and eyes? This results to you having less fun. But this kind of feeling is not exclusive to you.
This is what you call a jet lag, your body's reaction to the changing time zones. Jet lag may be made worse by aircraft conditions. As your body clock adjusts to the new time zone, jet lag lessens. Recovery period is about one day per time zone crossed.
Why Do You Get Jet Lag
You have your own body clock regulating your body's biological rhythms. Let me state in a way simple enough for you to understand. Do you find yourself waking up at the same hour everyday, without the aid of an alarm clock? Or a daily 8am pee break is in order? Do you hear your stomach growling at 12 noon every day? Do you feel sleepy around 9 PM each day? That is you body clock in action. Your body clock reminds you that you need to do something at a specified time.
Your body clock is regulated by your country's time zone. Within your time zone, your body clock is conformed and adjusted to the local environment via external cues referred to as Zeitgerbers, the most important and the strongest of which is sunlight.
Aircrafts hastens crossing time zones now a days. Since the trip across timezones is so fast, your body doesn't have plenty of time to adjust to the change. Your whole body clock becomes out of sync with all the destination's time zone as it is exposed to a daylight and night pattern that is dissimilar to the rhythms your whole body is accustomed to. Hence, your body's natural pattern is disturbed. The rhythms that influence the schedule for eating, sleeping, body temperature variance, and hormone regulation don't correspond to the new setting. As a result, you feel the negative effects of an out-of-sync body clock.
Naturally, your body adjusts to the new time zone. How fast the adjustment is depends on the individual. You might be one of the few ones who experience very little, even hardly noticeable, disruptions. A friend travelling with you may require a number of days to adjust to the new schedule so he could enjoy his holidays to Cyprus 2012 after the flight from mainland USA.
Thankfully, jet lag is temporary and there are lots of ways to help you feel better. Click this link, look for tips about easing up jet lag, and book the vacation of your dreams. After several journeys, you would be accustomed to that feeling.