Is jet lag in your head or can you control it?

Question

Is jet lag in your head or can you control it?

Answer 1

There are various methods of controlling it.  Depending on whether you are flying east to west and west to east (and how many time zones) the formula is different.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=jet...

Good Luck...

Answer 2

I think it's both. Drinking lots of water before and during the flight helps me the most.

Answer 3

Both in this science show I watched(beyond tomorrow) they had a pair of sunglasses with green LED's in them to trick the body into thinking it was day and it worked. You should look it up on google.

Don't forget to vote best answer.

Answer 4

you can control it by playing mind tricks. If you lose time, pretend you didn't, drink a lot of water, and don't sleep until a normal time where you are at. Napping at wierd times is the worse

Answer 5

It's a mixture of both.

Obviously, there are physiological effects on your body's sleep-wake cycle when you switch time zones. You sleep too much or too little, or your waking/sleeping hours are messed up, or simply having light at different times of the day does affect your body.

But to some extent, it's psychological as well -- you expect for it to throw you off, and it does (placebo effect/self fulfilling prophecy type of thing).

Answer 6

No it is a real physiological issue.  Your sleep-wake cycle is based on a 25 hour clock according to many studies of the subject.  Melatonin which is the "I'm sleepy" hormone is secreted by your body based on this clock, and the day/night sequence you are used to.  

Travel East since you are moving away from the Sun is normally a harder adjust than travel west (moving with the Sun).  Typically one needs a day for each hour difference between your home time and the destination time.

There's a lot of techniques one can use:  sleeping to wake upon arrival (forcing your body to start syncing up), using Melatonin pills to advance your cycle-personally this has never worked for me.

Bottom line it's definitely not psychosomatic-it is a physiological condition-as I can personally attest over 24 years of flying.