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Jet lag happens when your body’s natural clock, or circadian rhythm, is disrupted by traveling to different time zone. This temporary sleep condition affects your energy and state of alertness.

Your body is aligned on a 24-hour cycle or body clock.

Your body follows this internal clock to perform specific biological functions, like releasing hormones that help you sleep, or increasing your body temperature to help you wake up at the start of your day.

Jet lag, also called desynchronosis or circadian dysrhythmia, is temporary, but it can interfere with your day in many ways. It can cause:

  • tiredness
  • drowsiness
  • lethargy
  • upset stomach

These symptoms aren’t dangerous, but they can affect your well-being. Preparing for jet lag, and possibly preventing it, can help you ensure this common disorder doesn’t disrupt your next trip.

Causes of jet lag

Your body is naturally set to a 24-hour cycle that’s known as your circadian rhythm. Your body’s temperature, hormones, and other biological functions rise and fall according to this internal time gauge.

Jet lag disrupts your body’s clock for several reasons:

Your clocks don’t align

When you travel, your body clock may no longer align with the time in your new location.

For example, you may fly out of Atlanta at 6 p.m. local time and arrive in London at 7 a.m. local time. Your body, however, thinks it’s 1 a.m.

Now, just as you’re possibly reaching peak fatigue, you need to stay awake another 12 to 14 hours to help your body adjust to the new time zone.

Sleep timing

You could help prepare your body to the new time zone by sleeping on the plane, but several factors make it difficult to sleep while traveling. These include temperature, noise, and comfort level.

On the other hand, you might sleep too much on the plane and also throw off your body clock. This can happen because the barometric pressure on planes tends to be lower than air on the ground.

This is similar to being on a mountain that’s 8,000 feet (2.44 km) above sea level. While there’s just as much oxygen in the air, the lower pressure may result in less oxygen reaching the bloodstream. Lower oxygen levels may make you lethargic, which can encourage sleep.

Travel fatigue

Medical studies show that travel fatigue also contributes to jet lag. Changes in cabin pressure and high altitudes during air travel may contribute to some symptoms of jet lag, regardless of travel across time zones.

Some people may get altitude sickness when traveling on a plane. This can cause symptoms that may worsen jet lag like:

  • headache pain
  • fatigue
  • nausea that may worsen jet lag

Sunlight

Too much sunlight in the plane’s cabin or getting too much screen time while traveling can also affect your body clock. This is because light helps control how much melatonin your body makes.

The hormone melatonin helps your body get ready to fall asleep. It’s released in the brain at night when lights are dimmer.

During the day or when it’s bright, your body slows down melatonin production, which helps you be more awake.

Dehydration

Dehydration may also contribute to some symptoms of jet lag.

If you don’t drink enough water during your flight, you can get slightly dehydrated. In addition, humidity levels are low in planes, which can cause more water loss.

Coffee and alcohol

Travelers tend to enjoy beverages on a plane that they may not normally drink in those amounts or at those times.

Drinking coffee, tea, and other caffeinated beverages may prevent you from getting enough sleep on the flight. Caffeine can also make you more dehydrated.

Drinking alcohol might make you drowsy, but it can worsen the quality of sleep. Alcohol may also cause fatigue, headache pain, nausea, and other side effects that worsen jet lag.

Other factors that impact jet lag

Flying allows you to cross multiple time zones very quickly. It’s a very efficient way to travel. The more time zones you cross, the more severe your symptoms of jet lag may be.

Older travelers are more likely to experience more severe symptoms of jet lag than younger travelers. Young travelers, including children, may have fewer symptoms and adjust to the new time more quickly.

The direction you’re flying can have a big effect on your jet lag symptoms, too.

Symptoms tend to be more severe when traveling eastward. That’s because staying awake later to help your body adjust to a new time zone is easier than forcing your body to go to sleep earlier.