Regular travellers will know the misery of jet lag (Image: Getty)
Towards the end of the 1970s, a new era began for holidaymakers as transatlantic flights became an affordable prospect. But while the financial cost of long-haul flights has continued to drop, the physical cost has stayed the same.
Jet lag has a few different contributory factors, including the oxygen-poor environment inside airliners, but the main driver is a sudden change from one time-zone to another. The body’s natural rhythms can’t adjust quickly enough and it’s common for long-distance travellers to have problems with sleep, as well as digestive issues.
Travelling in an eastward direction can cause particularly severe jet lag, and over-60s tend to be affected more than younger people. Seasoned travellers will recommend remedies such as melatonin, or strong coffee, but of course the best people to listen to when it comes to jet lag are airline crews.
Alfonso de Bertodano, an airline captain with 35 years of experience, has a simple and effective remedy: “To avoid jet lag, if I’m going to be in a place for two or three days, I try to meet up with people who are eating lunch or dinner at their usual time. Otherwise, it will take you six days to get over it”
Speaking to Mundo Deportivo, Alfonso added: “The reality is that I try to change my schedule as little as possible. I arrive at my destination at 8pm, which is 2am in Spain, and I go straight to bed. I don’t go out for dinner, I don’t go out for a drink.”
Heading east makes jet lag harder to deal with (Image: Getty)
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Alfonso – who as an airline pilot has to drive for work fresh and alert – continued: “I set myself a countdown of seven or eight hours and get up at whatever time it is, regardless of what time it is in that country.
“That way, I maintain my Spanish schedule. Because jet lag isn’t just about sleep. It’s about muscle tone, it’s about the digestive tract… It’s not the same to feed your body at 3 in the morning as it is to feed it at 10 or 11 at night.”
He stressed that spending time with locals, and adjusting to their schedule as quickly as possible, is the key to beating jet lag. “The ideal thing is to be with people who are having breakfast, lunch or dinner at their usual time, and you’re with them maintaining neural activity, brain activity and muscle tone activity,” recommended the pilot.
Timing your meals properly sends your. body the right cues (Image: Getty)
Alfonso added: “You’ll adjust much more quickly than if you do it on your own. And when you return, it’s exactly the same. That’s why when you arrive, you might sleep for a little while, but I immediately set my alarm clock to wake myself up and get on with my daily life,” explained the aircraft commander.
“It’s tiring, but you get your body used to performing like that. In the end, you have to control your body because if you let your body control you, you’ll end up curing your jet lag, or getting over your jet lag, in six days instead of 24 or 48 hours. »
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