Jet Lag -- East or West

many popular articles talk about it. both have.

Jet lag is caused by the body trying to acclimatize to time zone differences. Travelling from North to South or vice versa causes no jet lag as there is no time change. Travelling from West to East also has minimal jet lag effects because you gain time. Travelling from East to West has bad jet lag effects because you lose time.

Nope...sorry Hero... he's dead on...unless different people are affected differently.

I've been to Asia hundreds of times. I can do a 20 hour fly day into China, Japan, whereever and hit the ground running. Never slow down. But I can fly from San Francisco to Chicago and feel it for a day and a half. And here to London...geez...

Fly east to west...nothing. West towards East...ugh...

You wrote:-

Fly east to west...nothing. West towards East...ugh...

I agree totally. I used to fly to Denver from Frankfurt several times a year.....forced myself to stay awake a bit longer and within a short time OK.

Go home and have to drag myself around for a week at least.

I was up to a month in Denver at a time, good fishing in the mountains!!

I can't help but wonder if there is a relation between being a 'morning person' and being a 'night person'. I've had 5 trips US to Europe with the same person. He's a night person, and always has a harder time going east than coming back. I'm a 'morning person', and always have a much harder time coming back than going east!

which are you?

Dick

That was a nice observation!

I am a morning person, and I am the same way, going east is hard, going west is much easier.

Okay, but at least we agree. ;-)

Have you thought of coming back, by continuing west to east, since you are 1/2 way around the globe anyway?

Your personal experiment leaves out an important variable, Familiarity!

Upon returning to home, you have not only returned to familiar surroundings, you have also returned to the time zone of your long-established circadian rhythm. Is it easier to re-synchronize?

Food for thought.

On a west east travel direction the answer is simply NO.....

That doesn't explain why going to Asia is easier for me than coming back to the US...

Last time I traveled to KL I had no jet lag at all. When I came home it took a week to get back to normal...

Did you fly over the Pacific? (the usual way to go) then you traveled in a westward direction.

i.e. You went from East to West!!! [but went from the (Western?)USA to the Far east], which may have confused you!!!

I agree. Familiarity has a lot to do with lack of jet lag.

A Japanese traveler I know also gave me a unique perspective on jet lag. He said, dont get hung up on jet lag, just do what you feel like doing and it will take care of itself. If you want to eat, eat; if you want to drink, drink; if you want to sh.t, sh.t. Dont worry about it. Works for me..

Although what you say sounds logical, I'm afraid it doesn't jibe with my facts. I have the difficulty on returning from Europe to home in California, not vice-versa. If it were familiarity, the problem would also occur on long north-south flights as well. I have been to Chile several times, and never had the difficulty I have when returning from Europe. I haven't been any farther west than Hawaii, so I can't say about oriental flights...

I have been to Chile several times, and never had the difficulty I have when returning from Europe.

I have been to Ecuador, and being almost in the same time zone, I didn't have any problems with the jet lag. But I had some awful "season lag" in October when, over there, it was spring

I did two projects back to back in January a few years ago. The first in Fox Creek northern Alberta where the day time high was -40C. I then traveled directly to Kuantan Malaysia where it was +35C.

That resulted in both jet lag and season lag....

Last time I traveled to KL (Kuala Lumpur?) I had no jet lag at all. When I came home it took a week to get back to normal...

....northern Alberta where the day time high was -40C. I then traveled directly to Kuantan Malaysia

That resulted in both jet lag and season lag....

They cancelled each other. Lucky for you that you've have not chosen the west approach, it would be a disaster.

North south flights do not have any jet lag associated with them!!! Think about it!!! The time either hardly changed or remained the same!!! Within a couple of hours, you will have no jet lag!!!

The time either hardly changed or remained the same!!!

What, are you telling me that flying Houston to Guayaquil the time remained the same? Than where are the three hours that I have spent on the plane?

Watch it, we'll have Jorrie here in a minute with page long posts commenting on relativity and time dilation..

It's exactly what I was afraid when I wrote it. But...so far so good

That was "Time" you spent on the plane not "Time difference"!!!

No, it is not.

People travelling eastbound and back re-synch easier than people travelling westbound. From personal experience.

It is really the direction of travel that matters as very well described in post #3. (Anonymous, I voted for you! ).

That is YOUR personal experience, not mine. Clearly there are differences from person to person. Based on my limited observations, I suspect that you are a 'night person'...

Dick

Looks like everyone except DVADER agrees then: even Switchman who starts by saying he disagrees with Hero, then, goes on to say the same thing.

It makes sense going from East to West is just like starting a holiday: staying up late and lying in late. Going West to East is like going back to work.

Going East to West you just have to force yourself to stay awake for a bit longer the first day and everything falls in to place.

Without flying anywhere: I never want to go to sleep and I never want to get up.

Dang...I must need to back to working in the field. See what working in one place does to a mind.

Sorry Hero...I must've gone dyslexic or had bigger than usual smudges on the lens or something....

That's okay. I had to read the original poster's post to make sure I was reading the right thing. ;-)

O.K., if jet lag is slang for an upset circadian rhythm, and, light pollution has been shown to upset circadian rhythms, does light pollution contribute to, induce, or mimic jet lag?

bobguz

Interesting question. I guess it could if it altered the perceived sunrise/sunset times suddenly. However, jet lag isn't really noticeable unless you go more than two time zones. The maximum jet lag would be 12 time zones, but a lot depends on how long you take to get there, too.

I am curious, how does light pollution affect circadian rhythms?

Re light pollution, circadian rhythms and living things here's one starting point:

http://www2.nature.nps.gov/air/lightscapes/team.cfm

There are more. The best recent studies are from Europe.

Bobguz

Thanks!

I live on the East coast of the US. When I travel to the west coast it seems to not be any problem. However, it takes me about three days to recuperate from the trip back and that's only a three hour difference.

May be your wife trusts you with this explanation for being tired, thinking to much while having diner, smiling at nothing etc.. but there are some who will be circumspect. What really are you doing, on the west coast, after work hours, we need to know!

I read somewhere that eating light such as fruit can help. The red-eye from Hawaii was always tough.

I have to admit, I haven't quite understood what that means, about the "Red eye" I mean....is that early morning or late night or....?

Andy...

I think the term "Red Eye Flight" originated here on the US west coast. Lets say that I had a meeting in New York at 9:00 tomorrow morning. I would catch a 11:00 pm flight out of here tonite. Given 6 hours flight time and 3 time zones, for a total of 9 hours, I would get into New York at 8:00 am tomorrow morning. This would give me an hour to get to my meeting... but very red eyed.

Sincerely

Bill

Terrible, but thanks for the excellent explanation.

.......And I always thought it was the picture result of a camera with a cheap flash unit!!!!

I used to try and get somewhere the evening before as I work better after a nights sleep!!! With careful planning, it was usually possible!

I also see that you are a Pellets man, so am I, we have reduced our gas costs per year for heating/hot water to under €600........and still going down!!

Andy,

I have been burning pellets and corn (maize) for 5 years and love my low gas bills. I get my corn from a friend free so I pay very little for heat - just $175 for wood pellets to blend with the corn. Here in MN when it gets below 0 F the gas furnace will run occasionally. I am in the process of starting a pellet plant. Few people in the midwest have gotten into it yet. A few burn corn when it was cheap. With our pellets we could cut their fuel bills in half and be carbon neutral also. Most people think that this a novel new idea and I keep saying it is main stream in much of Europe. The high price of fossil fuels will eventually convince them.

My referal to 'Red Eye' was when I would leave Hawaii at 9:00 pm and arrive in Minnesota at 7:00 AM the next day. With a stop in LA and a rock hard bagel at 4:00 there were few chance to sleep. The next days were hard to get back into a rythm.

Russ

I flew to China from San Fransisco last summer. I can't remember jet lag really effecting me, just the extremely long flight. The thing that was a real kick though was that on the return flight, we arrived in San Fransisco within an hour of the same time and date that we left Shanghai. Jets flying East travel much faster. Just kidding of course. It was still a long flight.

Bill

I think.. it is more of a psychological feeling than any scientific reason.I don't agree with peoples concept of travel to west is easy.I feel the factor "back to home" have made the difference in your case.

Some say flying westward is worse.
Others say it is just the reverse.
Flying north to the pole,
Then south to your goal
Will undoubtedly manage this curse.

His answer is surely the best

It makes much more sense than the rest

To avoid feeling tired

This prescription's inspired

Just travel neither east nor west!

I'm a night person but don't have problem with jet lag when travel to Hong Kong and back to Toronto. Trick? Don't sleep before getting on the plane and sleep the whole 13hrs on the plane. I do wake up and eat.

Go East ..you gain time., go west you loose time and body is stressed to regain the lost time. so go east ..and be happy....

You don't get it!