Jet-lag blues: Help for long-distance fliers
Everyone who flies long distances knows the agony of trying to sleep aloft and then suffering from a body and brain out of sync with the local time once they arrive.
APPublished: Sunday, August 22, 2010 at 3:00 a.m.
Last Modified: Thursday, August 19, 2010 at 8:02 p.m.
Michael Hirschberg, a Santa Rosa restaurant consultant, shares his survival methods for long distance flying with members of the food and wine groups he takes every summer to France.
“No matter what time you get to Europe, stop thinking about California. Set your watch for where you're landing. Don't say, ‘according to California time we should be sleeping.' You're in Europe. This is where you should be staying up. Push, push, push yourself to stay up to a reasonable bedtime. Like 9 p.m.”
That's how he helps prevent jet lag, that cranky, groggy result of rapidly crossing several time zones and disrupting the body's natural daylight circadian rhythms. Hirschberg also makes sure he sleeps en route, and for that he likes Ambien, a prescription sleeping pill and longtime companion of many frequent flyers. On a trip to London this year, he snoozed until he heard the pilot announcing they were starting their final approach.
“I even missed breakfast,” he said.
Former flight attendant Ruth Doyle Buzzard, now a Santa Rosa realtor, says drugs make her groggy. Her sleeping armor includes eye shades, ear plugs, a warm blanket and soft neck pillow. She changes into yoga pants when she gets on the plane and wears support/compression stockings to prevent clotting.
Doyle Buzzard, who flew for Western Airlines, which became Delta, said when she gets to her destination she drinks some milk and tries to stay awake.
“If I'm especially tired, I take only a two- or three-hour nap, then get up, have a shower and get out and take a walk.”
Everyone who flies long distances knows the agony of trying to sleep aloft and then suffering from a body and brain out of sync with the local time once they arrive.
Pilot sympathizes
Still, some people seem to do it without effort. On a recent flight from New York to San Francisco, one woman in coach was spotted sound asleep, her legs hoisted on her tray table and crossed in a half lotus yoga position.
Jet Blue pilot Tom Warren of Sebastopol sympathizes with passengers' creative efforts to find comfort, especially back in coach.
“Leg room has really decreased recently in coach for most airlines,” said Warren. “With cheaper tickets, airlines are trying to get more people on each flight. That means you're jammed against the seat in front of you and you really get crammed when that seat comes back. Also, as people get wider, there's less personal space.”
Warren hasn't discovered any surefire way to avoid jet lag, but he believes every person deals with it differently, “depending on how their body works.
“Those who can fall asleep whenever they want do the best,” he said. “The younger you are, the easier it is.”
What sometimes works for him is to take a two- to five-hour nap during the day when he arrives at his destination. Then he attempts to sleep through that first night by popping a melatonin tablet, an alternative to sleeping pills said to ease jet lag by helping reset the body's clock. The supplement is an extra dose of the natural hormone melatonin that helps set the body's sleep cycle and is normally secreted at bedtime.
Jet lag can last
According to the federal government's Centers for Disease Control, jet lag can last for several days, a time roughly equal to two-thirds the number of time zones crossed for eastward flights and about half the number of time zones crossed on westward flights.
The CDC website http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/yellowbook/2010/chapter-2/jet-lag.aspx notes that that while some doctors advocate using melatonin during the first few days of travel to prevent jet lag, the quality control of melatonin is not regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
As for sleeping pills, the CDC warns against combining any of them with alcohol.
Travel guru Rick Steves writes in his travel books that “jet lag hates daylight, fresh air and exercise.” He also uses Ambien to sleep on the plane.
So does Laura Salo Long, a flight attendant for 15 years for Western Airlines who now has a wine marketing company based in Sonoma County and which has her flying regularly to Europe.
“Most of the flying public that I know takes Ambien at some point,” she said, but adds, “as a former flight attendant who has experienced emergency landings, I often wonder how those passengers are prepared to evacuate after taking Ambien.”
According to webmd.com, Ambien can last for six to eight hours and has few side effects.
Wool shawl
Salo Long carries a wool shawl or long scarf for sleeping on the plane, “even in summer. It's my blanket, something familiar and cozy.”
She also does exercises in her seat so she doesn't stiffen up and makes sure she gets up and walks around the aircraft.
“My office chair is wider than an aircraft seat and I would never think of sitting in it for 10 hours without getting up.”
New Zealand native Vivienne Hutchison flies back to the motherland at least once a year. It's a 12-hour flight but the timing — she leaves San Francisco at 7 p.m., skips a day and arrives in Auckland at 5 o'clock in the morning — seems “almost normal.”
“By the time I get on board and have a meal, it's sort of like the normal time to go to sleep. I watch how much wine I have. Stick to one glass, maybe a second with the meal. I'm very conscious of drinking as much water as possible so I don't get dehydrated. And then I always get an aisle seat because I hate climbing over people.”
Hutchison, who lives in Cotati, dresses for comfort, including a pair of knit capris — “nothing too bulky or tight and no jeans” — paired with an attractive jacket. “That way you can be comfortable but still look neat and tidy.”
She takes off her shoes and puts on a pair of socks for sleeping and occasionally takes a No Jet Lag pill, an over-the-counter homeopathic jet lag remedy.
She said the pills eased the discomfort of a 20-hour flight from California to Peru.
“That was a long and really tiring trip but I didn't have that drowsy, dead feeling when I got there.”
What might have helped even more was getting to stretch out on a fold-out bed in business class. She used free miles to upgrade her seat on the longest leg of the flight, from Miami to Lima.
“If I could afford it (business class),” she said, “that's the way I'd go all the time.”
Ambien devotee
Santa Rosa-based Caitlin and Albert Woodbury operate La Tour de Cause B&B in the Dordogne region of France.
Another Ambien devotee, Caitlin Woodbury takes one pill after dinner and settles her tall frame into a coach seat.
“I nest in with my comfy neck pillow, my own headphones that provide some noise reduction, apply my lip balm and face moisturizer, put on my blackout mask.”
Then she listens to music or a favorite radio show on her iPod until she starts to feel drowsy.
“Seven hours later, bingo, we're making the descent into DeGaulle airport.”
Once arriving in France, it takes her about one week to fully adjust to the time change.
The couple's dog, Heather, who traveled with them for four years, had to adapt on her own and would need a couple of weeks “to sync her body clock with French time.
“Of course, she didn't have to get up and make coffee for guests so she would just continue to try to sleep and eat and run around on her own schedule,” said Woodbury, “including romping on the back lawn at 3 a.m.”
Like Heather the dog, there was a New York guest of the Woodburys' from New York who refused to adjust to the European time zone.
“She said ‘I don't do jet lag' and would stay in the room and sleep until about 3 p.m. and wake up in the early afternoon and be with her husband and friends in the later part of the day to go out to dinner,” she said.
“But she just didn't care to force herself to get up in the morning. She said that when she goes back to New York after her European vacations she's still on New York time and doesn't have to miss a beat.”
Susan Swartz is a freelance writer and author based in Sonoma County. Contact her at susan@juicytomatoes.com.
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