Melatonin for Jet Lag? Maybe

Whether you are passenger or pilot, circadian rhythm disruption or rapid time zone change syndrome AKA Jet Lag, can drastically impact your performance for days after slamming through multiple time zones. Symptoms include excessive sleepiness and a lack of daytime alertness. Some folks also experience fatigue, insomnia, disorientation, headache, lightheadedness or stomach upset, none of which are good when driving an airplane! We’ve talked about this before, May 2023 most recently. For those of you who don’t want to plow beck to that article, we pointed out several things that could help:

• Make sure you are well-rested before your flight.

• Adjust you sleep schedule a few days ahead of your flight. If you are flying eastward get up one to two hours earlier for several days before your flight. Turn on bright lights to “reset” your internal clock. If you are flying westward delay your bedtime for one to two hours.

• Push fluids.

• Eat lightly, stressing carbohydrates.

• Reset your biological clock to the local time by

o Staying active on arrival.

o Exposure to sunlight

o Eating and sleeping in accordance with local times. .

• For pilots and flight crew

o If layover is short stay on your “home” time zone’s schedule.

o Use caffeine as appropriate.

o Stay active.

o If you are still sleepy take a short nap. That’s if you have a relief pilot! Don’t nap more than 30 minutes.

One additional trick that has become quite popular is using melatonin supplements to reduce the detrimental effects of jet lag. Melatonin is a hormone that normally is released by the pineal gland in the brain to regulate sleep. Production peaks in the middle of the night and slowly falls as dawn breaks. The normal variation in light helps to keep melatonin production in sync with the day-night cycle. Indeed, if folks are given melatonin during the day they become sleepy. So don’t take it while in the cockpit! But does it help after you’ve arrived?

There have been a number of studies looking at melatonin’s effectiveness. Bottom line seems to be that it can help quite a bit if you are traveling eastward and need to get to bed earlier than your bio-clock wants to. Take some at the time-zone appropriate bedtime and off to sleep you go. The effect seems less pronounced if you are travelling westward and are trying to stay up later than your body wants to. Here, exposure to sunlight, exercise and activity seem to be helpful aids to getting back in rhythm. Also, although short term occasional use of melatonin seems to be safe, there is no reliable data on the effects and safety of long-term use. If you would like more information, the FAA has an excellent brochure on the subject:

https://www.faa.gov/pilots/safety/pilotsafetybrochures/Circadian_Rhythm_English

Fly wisely. See you next month!

As always, comments, questions and suggestions are welcome: jdlakinmd@gmail.com

Also, we’ve moved our office to Airlake Airport’s FBO (KLVN). Call 952-469-4414 or email info@aloft-aviation.com for a flight physical appointment.