Natural remedies and energy medicine tips for Jet Lag

Frequent fliers know that traveling across time zones without throwing your body out of balance is tricky. It takes sensible precautions, a bit of exercise, and plenty of sleep to bounce back quickly from a flight across time zones. But what most travelers don’t know is that simple Energy Medicine tools can also help to reduce jet lag and speed recovery after long travel. The following techniques may sound a little strange, but for most people, they work to prevent jet lag and improve the travel experience.

What is Energy Medicine

Energy Medicine is a set of gentle assessment tools and adjustments using the body’s energy systems – the Chinese energy meridians, the Ayurvedic chakras, and other less complex energies – to improve health and reduce illness. Energy Medicine works on some very subtle levels but has real effects that are usually felt by even the most skeptical. To learn more, see Donna Eden’s Energy Medicine.

How Can Energy Medicine Help With Jet Lag

The human body operates on a 24-hour daily cycle, tuned in with the daylight and darkness (as well as the Earth’s subtle energies) of the time zone you live in. Jet lag is caused by the body’s imbalance and adjustment period after a change in time zones.

Energy Medicine tools can be used to alter the daily cycle, to help the body learn and adjust faster to a new time zone.

How Can I Use Energy Medicine to Prevent Jet Lag

Like most energy techniques, the corrections for jet lag work best when they are used as a preventive measure, during the flight.

In Energy Medicine, each of the twelve lateral meridians (all except the two central meridians) corresponds to a two-hour window of the day. The energy of a given meridian is especially strong, and especially important, at that time of day. In order to adjust for jet lag, we must reset the body’s energies so that the meridian cycle of the new time zone takes charge over the body’s time “settings”.

During every hour of travel, look up the meridian active in the “old” time zone and the meridian currently active in the “new” time zone to which you are traveling. Points on the old meridian are held, then points on the destination time zone meridian. Doing this with the appropriate points every hour or two helps reset the body’s internal clock, preventing jet lag.

Other Tips and Tools for a More Pleasant Trip

It’s common advice because it works: drinking lots of water during the flight, and avoiding caffeine and alcohol, works wonders for the body’s ability to bounce back from stress
Sleep, exercise and diet play an important role in the body’s adaptability to change, so take care to get enough sleep, to move around during long flights, and eat healthy, nutritious food with plenty of protein before and during travel
Herbal and natural supplements such as ginseng and MSM are helpful for many travelers
Techniques from Brain Gym and dowsing may also be helpful in balancing the body’s energy system and combating the impact of EMF disturbances during flights

How Portable Light Boxes Ease Jet Lag

Travelling across several time zones often cause chaos to the body clock, leaving the traveller feeling wide awake at midnight or groggy in mid afternoon within the new time zone. The following symptoms may also be experienced:

low mood
headaches
anxiety
loss of appetite
low energy levels
disrupted sleep
loss of concentration

Prevent Jet Lag

Jet lag or dysrhythmia, as it is also known, occurs when more than 50 delicately orchestrated circadian rhythms are disrupted throughout the body. Without an aid, it is thought to take up to a day per time zone for the body to adjust. In some people the symptoms may linger for up to two weeks. Furthermore, difficulty with adjustment increases with age.

Professor Derk-Jan Dijk, director of the Surrey Sleep Research Centre maintains, “If you fly west, you will find it difficult to stay awake but easy to wake up. If you fly east, typically it is the other way around.”(“Sleepless in Seattle,” The Guardian, June 2007).

But help is at hand. Professor Alan Bird, an eye specialist at the Moorfields Eye Hospital, discovered that special light receptor cells in the back of the retina reacted with blue light, causing the pineal gland to produce less melatonin, a sleep hormone. This has been found to effectively manipulate the body’s circadian rhythms during long flights and to help increase alertness for those suffering seasonal affective disorder (SAD) during the dark winter months.

Jet Lag Light Therapy

Light boxes for SAD include the blue wave light spectrum, which exists in natural daylight. Portable light therapy boxes, such as Litebook, Apollo Golite P1 M2, Blu and Litepod are available with built in calculators to provide jet lag remedies for long distance flights.

The calculator is easy to use. The traveller simply inputs the waking time, date and location of departure, and arrival destination. The calculator will then work out a personalised light and dark schedule for the traveller. Following the schedule is important if the symptoms of jet lag are to be allayed. This entails seeking light at specified times and avoiding light at other times.

How to Use the Portable Light Box

A general guide in how the traveller may use the light therapy is as follows:

Travelling east: use light therapy or seek bright daylight prior to travelling in the morning (destination time)
Travelling west: use light therapy or seek bright daylight prior to travelling in the morning (destination time)
Use the light therapy for up to an hour on the day of travel, then use it 15 to 30 minutes on the second day of travel
Light avoidance is equally as important as light exposure. Exposure to sunlight or daylight at inappropriate times can exacerbate jet lag. Interior lights are fine, for their lux value (or brightness) is much lower than daylight. However, certain travellers have reported further improvement if artificial light is avoided altogether at these times. If the traveller is caught out in bright light, special light blocking sunglasses can be worn to avoid blue light getting onto the retina and causing further disruption to the body clock

Blue Light Therapy to Reset Circadian Rhythms

Using a portable light box is an effective treatment for jet lag, helping to speed the adjustment of the body clock to the time of day within the new destination. This can also be used for shift work and as a treatment for SAD. Blue wave therapy has been found to emulate the effects of natural daylight, suppressing the sleep hormone melatonin and so increasing alertness.

Note: Although the portable light box is safe to use, due to its brightness, it is not advisable to stare at it. Of course, a trip to the GP is advisable before using a light box or any other device.