Preventing Jet Lag By Resetting The Circadian Body Clock
To help travellers deal with jet lag, researchers at the Biological Rhythms Research Lab at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, Il, USA, have come up with a simple 3-step treatment that can be done at home before travelling, by resetting the circadian body clock before crossing several time zones :
Step 1. Get intermittent bright light in the morning.
Step 2. Take half a milligram of melatonin in the afternoon.
Step 3. Move your bedtime up one hour every night.
Each step helps “phase advance” the circadian clock, that is reset your circadian clock earlier in time so that all the circadian rhythms of the body occur earlier than they normally would. The combination of the bright light and melatonin bring about a larger phase advance than bright light alone.
The researchers studied 44 healthy adults - 24 men and 19 women, between the ages of 19 and 45. Participants were randomly divided into three groups and assigned one of three treatments: a placebo, 0.5 mg of melatonin or 3.0 mg of melatonin.
Every participant had to follow a strict eight-hour sleep schedule that was similar to their typical sleep schedule. In addition, they had to remain in bed, in the dark, trying to sleep throughout the eight hour scheduled sleep/dark period. On the seventh day, each person was given a baseline phase assessment, starting seven hours before and ending three hours after their beginning bedtime. They then slept in the lab and were awakened at a scheduled time. The participants continued on this sleep schedule through day 10 of the study.
Days 11 through 13 marked the treatment period of the study, during which the participants slept in the lab in individual, dark, temperature-controlled bedrooms. Each afternoon, each person received either 0.5 or 3.0 mg of melatonin or matching placebo. The study ended with a final phase assessment on day 14.
The researchers found that those who were given melatonin experienced significantly larger phase advances–the 0.5 mg group at 2.5 hours and the 3.0 mg group at 2.6 hours versus the placebo group at 1.7 hours. Moreover, the participants did not experience jet lag-type symptoms.
This treatment can also be used by people working the night shift.
Reference : “Travelers Can Avoid Jet Lag By Resetting Their Body Clocks” The Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism (Press Release - Nov 2005)
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