Avoid Jet Lag with Light Therapy

If you are suffering from jet lag, Light therapy is an efficient treatment used to cure circadian rhythm sleep disorders.

Your body has an internal clock which tells when it is time to sleep and when it is time to awake.

This clock is located in the brain just above an area where the nerves travel to the eyes. This area is called the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN). Your clock controls the “circadian rhythms” in your body. These rhythms include body temperature, attentiveness and the daily cycle of many hormones.

Circadian means to occur in a cycle of about 24 hours. Circadian rhythms make you feel drowsy or alert at regular times every day. If you have circadian rhythm disorder, your natural sleep time will overlap with regular awake activities.

Your clock is set by exposure to bright light such as sunlight. Exposure to bright morning sunlight cures jet lag after a few days in most people.

Light therapy helps reset your clock if it is off. Light therapy is used to expose your eyes to intense but safe amounts of light for a specific and regular length of time. In many places, sunlight is not available at the proper time to be used as treatment.

Artificial light may be used to affect the body clock in the same way as the sun light does. You can use light box for the light therapy. Light therapy is only part of a treatment plan that should be guided by a doctor who is familiar with sleep disorders.

Hormone melatonin helps to decrease jet lag. Melatonin is a substance similar to hormones, which is produced in the brain by the pineal body close to the pituitary gland.

Darkness stimulus produces an increased release of melatonin into the blood; light stimulus causes a jam in the melatonin release.

Time zone:

A time zone is a geographical region in which every clock keeps the same time. In all, the world has 24 time zones, one for each hour in the day. Each zone runs from north to south in strips of approximately 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) wide.

As the earth rotates, sunrise occurs at a set hour in one time zone, then an hour later in the time zone immediately to the west and soon through the 24-hour cycle.

If you are Traveling East:

If you are traveling east, use morning light 2-3 days before leaving. The number of time zones traveled corresponds to the hours needed to shift.

Taking time-released melatonin in the early evening or late afternoon can also help accelerate this shift. Sleep schedules should also be adjusted each day.

If you are Traveling West:

Use evening bright light for 1 hour to 45 minutes a few days before leaving, and use the light a couple of hours later each successive day. Each day you use light will shift your internal time.

GoLite:

The GoLite is the first efficient device that allows you to use a jet lag prevention, because it has a universal power supply (accepts 110-240 volts), and is small enough to take anywhere.

Because the GoLite only produces the specific bandwidth responsible for suppressing melatonin and shifting circadian rhythms, it is as effective as larger full-spectrum light boxes at a fraction of their size.

A single light box and the over-the-counter drug melatonin allows travelers to avoid jet lag by resetting their circadian body clock before crossing several time zones, according to new research being published in The Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.

This treatment can also help those with delayed sleep phase syndrome (DSPS), a condition that results from a misalignment between a person’s internal biological clock and the external social environment.

Both bright light and melatonin have successfully been used in laboratory and field settings to “phase advance” thereby helping people adapt to night shift work or to a new time zone following rapid transmeridian jet travel.

If your going for any of these treatments, first consult the doctor and take the treatment according to the doctor’s advice.

Day of Departure:

You should use bright light on the day of departure early in the morning. If you are taking a late afternoon or evening flight, make sure to wear sunglasses when you arrive at the airport.

Avoid any bright light and try to be as rested as possible on the plane. Use a face mask or sleep mask to block out any unwanted light.

Day of Arrival:

The morning you arrive, you should avoid any bright light before 10:00 am (wear sunglasses again), just to make sure that your body clock doesn’t start to revert to your old schedule.

If you do have a light with a universal power supply, such as the GoLite, you should use it each morning until 2 - 3 days before you leave to come back.