Jet Lag
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Jet Lag
Chris Idzikowski (Director of the Edinburgh Sleep Centre) gives expert video advice on: What is jet lag?; How do you overcome jet lag?; Does jet lag affect adults and children in different ways? and more...
What is jet lag?
Jet lag is the mismatch between what your biological clock is saying and what the outside world is telling you. So if you've traveled, say, three hours eastwards, because a jet plane goes so quickly, the biological clock is still running at your home time, three hours behind.
Does jet lag affect adults and children in different ways?
To a great extent, it's not clear how children are affected by jet lag at all. So the odds are, they'll be similar. They'll be retaining their home time zone internal clocks, which may well mean that they're staying awake longer than they should be or falling asleep at odd times.
Can jet lag be harmful?
It's cabin crew and pilots who have been most investigated, and although there's always a question, a little bit of a question mark, for the most part, the evidence doesn't seem to be there, so jet lag has any impact long term.