I’ve always
found jet lag to be an interesting word, which is the interruption of circadian
rhythms caused by the changing of time zones. To understand things a bit
further I will explain what is the circadian rhythm. The circadian rhythm is
our biological clock, telling us when to go to sleep and wake up based on
light, meals, temperatures and much more.
When we
change time zones, we either lose or gain sleep, which affects us, causing
sleepiness during the day or sleeplessness during the night; it also may cause
depression or impaired concentration. Time zone changes are not always hard,
for example going to the west is a much easier change than going to the east,
because when we go west gives us more time to stay awake and wake up late which
is easier to adjust to, while going to the east means we are forced to go to
sleep earlier and wake up earlier, because of the lost time. It is more
difficult to go to sleep earlier than the body’s accustomed time.
Getting
used to time zone changes can be very difficult and place a lot of strain in
our bodies, and the hormone cortisol is elevated which high levels of it can
damage the hippocampus, the area important for memory, here is an article that
shows the symptoms of jet lag. Studies have been made where flight attendants
who worked for 5 years making lots of time zone changes, had their hippocampus
looked at. As a result it was found that they have smaller hippocampus than
average showing some memory impairments. Here is a video on how to avoid jet lag.
Yes a lot of times time zone changes can be hard to adjust to quickly. I say this because everytime we have a time change it takes some time to be able to adjust. It is harder like you said, to adjust when it comes to having to wake up earlier and go to sleep earlier.
ReplyDeleteThe word "jet lag" is usually associated to traveling by airplane, but this disruption can also occur when traveling by an automobile, train or bus. The research that you mentioned consisted of studying the hippocampus of flight attendants; I wonder if similar results may be found for truck drivers or train conductors. It may be that the time zone change happens so rapidly through air travel that this condition is more notable.
ReplyDeleteThat should be some kind of warning about being a pilot or hostess, because it may not be so severe right now to lose memory but later it can be and it seems that traveling that way can negatively affect how our body functions without sleep for so long, because it never has time to adjust to one kind of time zone.
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