Jet lag: Specifics About Beginning in St. Jean Pied de Port

[Maura Santangelo]

You can minimize the effects of jet lag by getting enough sleep before
you leave, skipping the airline dinner if you are coming from North
America, and sleeping if you can, drink fluids when you can't.  Avoid
caffeinated drinks or alcohol of any sort when on the plane.  This is a
case where water is definitely best as the relative humidity on planes
is very low and most of what you lose is water through breathing.
Caffeine and alcohol are diuretics and confuse you body clock, assuming
such a thing actually exists.  in any case it is a good time to try out
your water bottle, platypus or camelback.

Mild physical exercise outdoors on arrival helps more than going to
sleep in a hotel.  Eat a meal that has more protein that carbohydrates
at breakfast and lunch and more carbos at dinner.  All this will
minimize the symptoms,  to truly get over jet lag your body may need one
day per each hour of time zone change.  On longer trips your body may be
so confused that it does not know what time it is and fatigue is the
only thing you feel.

On my first trip to Asia- time change of over 13 hours and over 20 hours
of flight time, I followed a routine described in a book called How to
Beat Jet Lag, I no longer have the book, but these are the
recommendations I keep using and they still work.  The book has a much
more complicated routine based on the number of hours of time and
direction of change.  It involved diet changes for 3 days prior to
travel and timing caffeine use to reset the 'body clock'.

Maura


On Thursday, February 13, 2003, at 08:52 AM, David planning Le Chemin de
St Jacques/El Camino de Santiago wrote:

>> I found I needed a day to get over
> jet lag.
>
>
>