Jet Lag – A Consequence of Disrupted Sleep Rhythms

What Are The Symptoms? Daytime sleepiness, fatigue, difficulty concentrating, headache, irritability, gastric discomfort, and trouble initiating and maintaining sleep.

Klein, Wegman and Hunt’s “Westbound” flights study (1972) Found that the adjustment of the sleep-waking cycle was faster when flying westbound. Schwartz et al’s “Baseball” study (1995) analysed the results in relation to whether the teams travelled east to west or west to east. They found that the west coast teams travelling east lost more games than the east coast teams travelling west. As the natural timeclock is 25 hours, it seems to be easier to have a longer day (phase delay) than 'back' in time (Phase disruption.)

Research Application Research into the effects of melatonin for sleeplessness has led to the use of melatonin tablets for jet lag.

2007 Ig Nobel Prize Went to Argentinian Researchers who found that hamsters with jet lag recovered more quickly when given hamster-sized doses of viagra!

Hamsters are the species of choice for studies of circadian rhythms, Golombek said. That's because they have precise patterns, which are easily measured by watching when they run on their exercise wheels. ``As anyone who has a hamster as a pet will attest, they go to the wheel at the same time every night,'' Golombek said. ``They love wheels.''

Golombek believes that Viagra helps protect against jet lag because the drug raises levels of a small molecule called cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP) in the body. He explains that a spike in cGMP levels temporarily "speeds up" the internal body clock in the brain which is why it only works with phase delay, not phase disruption