Often on frequent flyer forums or travel blogs, someone will claim to have tried everything and been unsuccessful in overcoming jet lag. Testing everything within a narrow range of focus is not unlike Maslow’s Law of Instrument “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” Inadvertently, today’s jet lag cures make the same mistake of trying variations on a similar theme. Valuable results will only be achieved when a more inclusive and expanded view is adopted, including a new way of defining what jet lag is. This is the debate we need to have.
The current mix of “cures” ranges from pharmaceutical interventions to dietary manipulation, homeopathic pills and substance abuse. None of which serve the long-term health of the traveler. For anyone who travels frequently, these methods simply won’t work and can’t be sustained indefinitely without causing adrenal exhaustion and disease. Where all of these methods fail is in the outdated view and understanding of flying.
These two recent events demonstrate very well the current thinking regarding jet lag.
1) The World Cup South Africa 2010 and
2) The FDA Cephalon ruling in March 2010.
At the start of the World Cup, soccer players from 32 countries around the world traveled to compete for the FIFA world cup trophy. The battle for the final lies not only in the 12 men on the opposite side of the field, but also in the location and environment of South Africa. In addition to the weather and humidity challenges, most teams have had to make some concessions due to the altitude of South Africa (between 600m – 3450m above sea level). Only a handful of teams have similar environments at home, the rest will have to adapt quickly. The high altitude of South Africa can have as much of an impact on performance and outcome as your ability on the pitch. It is this factor that unites the footballer, the international athlete and the aviator alike in their suffering.
The dynamics and consequences of altitude on the traveling public are overlooked by all current jet lag cures available today. This oversight keeps current thinking about jet lag cures stuck in the past without reference to the reality of the travel environment.
If top athletes suffer from the effects of altitude on their conditioning, how much does altitude affect the regular traveler? Performances will suffer in the world cup without the knowledge of how to deal with altitude effectively. This is the same dilemma frequent flyers face with the artificial altitude of the airplane cabin. Defining jet lag as a simple desynchronization of the biological clock does not account for this perception. Simply put, we need to be able to export our environment from sea level to altitude for a cure that is healthy and sustainable for flyers, without sacrificing health or performance.
Not taking altitude into account when discussing jet lag is disastrous, especially since it’s a scientific fact that altitude affects every aspect of human physiology. There are no cures that address this jet lag challenge and many others like it. Instead, cures focus exclusively on the biological clock or only address the symptoms left behind by jet lag.
The FDA’s refusal to give Cephalon the go-ahead to prescribe Nuvigil as an unauthorized prescription for jet lag is a case in point. Cephalon’s approach focused on symptoms. Additionally, the nature of pharmaceutical interventions fosters an environment in which jet lag thrives. By denying Cephalon the go-ahead, the FDA saved us from the dangerous possibility of jet lag being labeled a disease and deserving credit. While this should be celebrated, the real question is how long before another pharmaceutical company tries to pull us out of our jet lag without understanding the basic facts of the condition.
The brief argument against this approach, and the altitude problem mentioned above, is the lack of a broader view of the problem versus the facts. The scientific discourse of the atmosphere at altitude is a hypobaric atmosphere. It means that the distribution of oxygen in the air is less than in the ground. This and other distinctions like it prove that manipulating the body through chemistry barely scratches the surface of a healthy solution when fundamental principles are ignored.
Jet lag costs more than sleepless nights, dehydration, nausea, and the inability to function. Ongoing stress leads to burnout and burnout of the individual, and stagnant productivity in the corporations that employ them. Even with the FDA ruling, nothing seems to change without serious discussion about the corporate and personal costs incurred as health declines.
As work-life balance continues to feature prominently in our time, anyone who flies frequently or for business needs to choose better means of overcoming jet lag if they value health. Not all flights have to end with jet lag, but the clothing we keep and our understanding of the flight environment are crucial to our success.
Only an educated long-term perspective on the problem will do. Until airlines, aircraft manufacturers, multinationals, frequent flyers, and the rest of the traveling public take notice, burnout rates, whether individual or corporate, will continue to rise no matter what Band-Aid solution is being used.
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