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ONE LAST SHIFT RHYTHM DOCTOR MANUAL

You experience insomnia or daytime sleepiness following travel across at least two time zones.

If you have all three, you can be diagnosed as having jet lag disorder: The ICSD-3 lists the following three criteria. Don't take naps all day, for example, or sleep a lot later than you normally would, he says.Īs soon as possible, you want to try to adjust your habits to your new time zone, he says. If you don’t take steps to adjust to your new time zone, that can worsen or prolong jet lag. For example, if you traversed two or more time zones by car or train in a short amount of time. Grandner points out that other types of travel, apart from jet airplane travel, could lead to jet lag. Since westward travel extends the length of your travel day, rather than shortening it, this better aligns with your clock’s natural inclination. “So most of us have this in-built tendency to drift a little bit later each day,” she says. That’s because the circadian clock in the brain, when not regulated by light exposure, naturally tends to lengthen each day. She says that eastward travel tends to cause a more trouble than westward travel. “The International Classification of Sleep Disorders says you may have jet lag if you cross two or more time zones,” Burgess says. These are pretty simple and straightforward. “Like jet lag, this can create a mismatch between your environment and your internal clocks.” “This is when your sleep-wake schedule shifts by more than two hours, like on the weekend,” Dr. While some other circadian rhythm disorders are similar to jet lag in that they’re related to circadian misalignment, they are distinct and separate sleep issues.

ONE LAST SHIFT RHYTHM DOCTOR MANUAL

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) describes jet lag as “a mismatch between a person’s normal daily rhythms and a new time zone.”Īn article in the New England Journal of Medicine defined it as “a recognized sleep disorder that results from crossing time zones too rapidly for the circadian clock to keep pace.”įurthermore, the most recent edition of the International Classification of Sleep Disorders (ICSD-3) (the American Academy of Sleep Medicine’s manual of sleep disorders) considers jet lag a subtype of circadian rhythm disorder, which puts it in the same family as shift work disorders. “While that’s happening, your mood, sleep, digestive system, immune system - basically everything can feel a bit out of whack.” “Your clocks will adjust, but that takes time,” she says.

The greater the time shift, the greater the misalignment and confusion. When you jump abruptly from one time zone to another (and start eating, sleeping, and getting sun at times that don’t correspond to when your body’s clocks expect you to), this misalignment creates internal confusion. These clocks operate on a 24-hour light-dark cycle, and depend on natural sunlight and cues like your sleep and mealtimes to stay on track. “For example, about three hours before you wake up, your circadian clock will start to raise your body temperature, raise your cortisol levels, and get you ready to start your day,” she says. These clocks regulate your body’s temperature, its metabolism, its production and release of hormones, and many other important bodily functions, she says. “We have a central circadian clock in the brain, and more recently it was discovered that every cell in the body has its own clock,” says Helen Burgess, PhD, a professor of psychiatry and the codirector of the sleep and circadian research laboratory at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Let’s get back to those “clocks” inside your body. The good news is that there are proven ways to help your body prepare and adjust to a time-zone shift, thus minimizing the effects of jet lag. In rare cases, it may even be persistent or severe enough to warrant medical attention. While jet lag is normal and no cause for concern - pretty much everyone will become jet-lagged if the time difference involved in a trip is large enough - it can be unpleasant. “When there’s a mismatch between the time input from your environment and where your body’s clocks are set, that’s what causes jet lag.” “Jet lag reflects the fact that there are lots of clocks inside our body that regulate a lot of functions, and they all want to be in rhythm,” says Michael Grandner, PhD, an associate professor of medicine and the director of the Sleep and Health Research Program at the University of Arizona in Tucson. It’s the feeling of fatigue, fuzzy-headedness, and all-around sluggishness that can accompany some types of long-distance travel.

If you’ve ever flown across several time zones - from the East Coast to the West Coast, for example, or from the United States to Europe - you’re probably familiar with jet lag.