Introduction to Jet Lag

Introduction to Jet Lag A jet lag is medically referred to as a physiological condition of the body that results from a change in the body’s circadian rhythms. It is basically a problem related to chronobiology (a system concerning the affect of time and other rhythmic processes on life) which is often induced by travelling across a number of time zones. It is also known as Time Zone Change Syndrome or Desynchronosis. The sun plays a huge role in the disruption of the circadian rhythms. The circadian rhythms control the timings of the routine functions like eating and sleeping. When a human body travels across different time zones, the body clock experiences daylight and darkness contrary to the rhythms to which it is used to. When this rhythm gets disturbed it can take a number of days to adjust to the new rhythm of daylight and darkness. As the body’s natural pattern gets upset the normal functions of the body with respect to eating, sleeping, temperature and hormone regulation stops corresponding to the environment as well as to the body itself. This change in the circadian rhythm of the body takes time to realign itself. This time taken to adjust varies from human to human. History of Jet Lag History of jet lag began with the invention of air craft. The people who used to travel by train or on horseback moved slowly which allowed sufficient time for their circadian rhythms to adjust to the new environment. There is a contradiction on the time the usage of the phrase was first seen or heard. One research showed that the first appearance of the phrase ‘Jet Lag’ was noticed in 1966 in an article of L.A. Times Air & Space magazine. “If you’re going to be a member of the Jet Set and fly off to Katmandu for coffee with King Mahendra,” wrote Horace Sutton (in a 1966 Los Angeles Times article), “you can count on contracting Jet Lag, a debility not unakin to a hangover. Jet Lag derives from the simple fact that jets travel so fast they leave your body rhythms behind.” Some say that the usage of the term was first noticed in 1965 in the New York Herald Tribune News Service when a columnist used the phrase in a story of a fashion designer travelling to Paris and his jet lag. The sentence in which it was used was: "Somebody on Madison Ave. gave the disease the name jet lag, and it's a beauty." The dates are still unconfirmed but Jet Lag has been discovered in the mid 1900s and since then the usage of the term and its exploration in terms of medical effects are being carried out.