Cheap fares, including cheap airplane tickets, cheap vacation packages and discount travel packages help make many a trip affordable. However, when crossing multiple time zones, jet lag complaints are common.
Jet lagged travelers often feel lifeless at their destination and very tired during their days and unable to sleep at night. Physical consequences include not only fatigue, but cognitive problems, and problems with the gastrointestinal tract leading to a disruption in bathroom routine.
Bottom line is that jet lab deteriorates the enjoyment for many of long distance trips.
Now there is a new website, launched New Years Day, from Jet Lag Rooster that claims it can help travelers avoid or at least minimize jet lag. Its basic premise is that strategic exposure to and avoidance of light can adjust travelers biological clocks, making flying easier on the body.
Bright light is critical because it is one of the main factors that keep bodies in sync with the environment. Light in the early morning helps people wake up while light at bed time leads people to wake up later.
At Jet Lag Roosters website visitors can enter in their trip itineraries, the times they usually go to sleep and wake up, and whether they would like to start shifting their sleep schedules before departure or after arrival. It then calculates the optimal times when a traveler should seek light and when it should be avoided.
The timing of when a body is exposed to light is important. The body is regulated by its circadian clock. When arriving at a new destination in a different time zone your biological clock is out of sync with the new environment which makes it more difficult to get the amount of rest that is needed.
The websites custom jet lag plan recommends exposure to light, noting that sunlight works best, but that a portable light box can also help. When light should be avoided it recommends closing curtains, shutting off lights or putting on a sleep mask.
While jet lag may not be able to be eliminated on particularly long trips, the website claims its recommendations can help to at least reduce jet lag.
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