Adjusting Your Body Clock To A Different Time Zone

Do you feel disoriented, irritable, and fatigued as soon as you landed on the tarmac of another country? Will it cause you a headache? They are such annoying inconveniences to your well-planned vacation, aren't they? Well, you are not alone because most probably, your fellow passengers, and maybe even the flight attendants who are taking care of you, might be experiencing the same thing, probably even worse than you do.

This is what you call a jet lag, your body's reaction to the changing time zones. In addition, jet lag may be exacerbated by conditions inside the aircraft: unfamiliar on-flight meals, cramped spaces, continuous low-level noise, and lack of sleep. 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

Your body has its own body clock, which regulates your body's biological rhythms. Here's a simplified version of how it works. Do you notice that you wake up at 6 AM without the alarm clock waking you up? Or a daily 8am pee break is in order? Do you feel really hungry around 12 noon every day? Or do you feel the need to hit the sack at 9 in the evening?Do you ever get the feeling of your bed calling you around 9 PM every night? That's your body clock running. Just like an alarm clock, your body clock sends out reminders 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.

Now, when you travel across the world in an airliner, you cross different time zones quickly due to the fast speed of today's jets. Since the journey across time zones is so fast, your body doesn't have plenty of time to adjust to the change. Your whole body clock becomes out of synch with all the destination's time zone since it is subjected to a daytime and night cycle that's dissimilar to the rhythms your whole body is used to. Hence, your body's natural pattern is interrupted. The rhythms that determine the schedule for eating, resting, body's temperature variance, and hormone regulation don't correspond to the new surroundings. 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.