Long trips, no matter what the reason, can be great fun, exciting and allow us all to see and experience new things, but if there is one constant downside, it has to be jet lag. For many people it seems that going east is much harder to deal with and the jet lag is far worse, but the question is why? There seems no real reason why it would affect anyone worse in one direction or another, but there it is. However, the University of Maryland have recently published the results of a study into the effects of jet lag to try and understand why this happens, and even a possible solution for getting over it was quickly as possible.

At the center of the brain, in the hypothalamus, special pacemaker cells exist that act as our body’s own internal clock. Every 24 hours the 20,000 cells synchronize, and the signals from here tell our body how to react. They react to the light around us, so that if it is light, they let the body know it is daytime and it needs to be awake, dark and they give the shutdown signals for nighttime and sleep.

This is where jet lag comes in, traveling across time zones messes up this process, and the pacemaker cells get confused by the changing light/dark cycles and our whole body ends up feeling groggy as a result. However, when confused, the default stance of your internal clock is to signal for a longer day, this is partly because our internal clocks are little slow usually, and our natural period of cycling day/night is slightly longer than 24 hours. This is why going east, shortening the day, hits us harder, not only is the time difference there, but the body is reacting the opposite way it needs to, when going west, lengthening the day, works with the body’s natural reaction.

Of course, knowing why it feels so bad is no real help, and here at Concierge Limousine in Los Angeles we know how bad it can make people feel after a long flight, of course we try and make journeys from the airport as comfortable as possible. However, the only solution to jet lag is to synchronize your internal clock with the new time zone. There are apps that help you accomplish that, and getting that done quickly is key to enjoying any trip.

Also published on Medium.