Travel Health: Fighting Jetlag

Having just got back to New Jersey from five days in California, I am feeling a bit jetlagged. Going out there wasn’t so bad — I made sure I got a good night’s sleep the first night and then listened to my body’s demands for sleep after that. Now that I’m home again, I’m just exhausted. Not to mention cranky, achy, and sluggish. Your pre-flight condition can help keep jetlag at bay. If you are stressed, nervous, sick, anxious, or just over-tired before your trip, you can count on the time zone change to make things worse. No matter how … Continue reading

Travel Health: Jetlag

What is jetlag, anyway? Is it for real, or just an excuse to take an extra day off after that big vacation to recover? Every person has an internal clock. This small cluster of brain cells helps control the timing of biological functions — like alertness, or sleepiness. The rhythm of your body as determined by your internal clock is known as your circadian rhythms. Read more about circadian rhythms here. When your body clock is thrown out of sync — by travel to another time zone — you may feel fatigued, disoriented, confused and fuzzy-headed, and tense. You may … Continue reading