Meet your melatonin alternative to help your jet lag symptoms
written by Jennifer Hamer
There is nothing worse than returning from a wonderful holiday, stepping off the plane after a long flight and feeling that horrible overwhelming sensation of tiredness, lack of energy, nausea and mental fogginess due to the disruptions to your internal body clock and sleep patterns. This is more commonly known as the dreaded jet lag (Choy & Salbu., 2011). Travellers have tried many methods to try to combat jet lag including taking melatonin, exercising, and avoiding alcohol and caffeine- the list goes on ……….. (Choy & Salbu ., 2011) However there a new method that is proving to be successful at helping to alleviate the annoying symptoms of jet lag- Cryotherapy (Huyghe et al., 2018)!
Cryotherapy exposes your body to sub zero as low as minus 85 degrees temperatures for up to 3 minutes. This increases your physical energy and improves your mental alertness during your waking hours. This occurs due to the release of endorphins (Leppäluoto et al., 2008). There is also an increase in norepinephrine and acetylcholine (Banfi et al., 2010). This enables you to fall in to a deeper state of REM sleep during the time you are trying to fall asleep. And as many of you may be aware, REM sleep is the deeper high-quality sleep that our bodies need to recover, repair and function optimally.
It is this release of endorphins causing the increase in energy and alertness followed by the deep state of relaxations experiences in REM sleep that enables the body to reset the ‘body clock’. So, if you can, opt to have a whole body cryotherapy chamber to help you stay alert and energised during the day and then allow you to relax that night. It will leave you feeling fully refreshed and back to normal the following day.
Cryotherapy is proving to be a popular choice among athletes (Huyghe et al., 2018) and celebrities including Andy Moore, Derek Hough and Jessica Alba when travelling to help them overcome jet lag. So next time you step out the airport terminal with your luggage in tow and starting to feel the detrimental effects of jet lag, head to Cyrojuvenate for a chamber to freeze away those symptoms.
References
Banfi, G., Lombardi, G., Colombini, A. and Melegati, G. (2010). Whole-body cryotherapy in athletes. Sports medicine, 40(6), pp.509-517.
Choy, M. and Salbu, R.L. (2011). Jet lag: current and potential therapies. Pharmacy and Therapeutics, 36(4), p.221.
Huyghe, T., Scanlan, A., Dalbo, V. and Calleja-González, J. (2018). The Negative Influence of Air Travel on Health and Performance in the National Basketball Association: A Narrative Review. Sports, 6(3), p.89.
Leppäluoto, J., Westerlund, T., Huttunen, P., Oksa, J., Smolander, J., Dugué, B. and Mikkelsson, M. (2008). Effects of long‐term whole‐body cold exposures on plasma concentrations of ACTH, beta‐endorphin, cortisol, catecholamines and cytokines in healthy females. Scandinavian journal of clinical and laboratory investigation, 68(2), pp.145-153.
NIH, National institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke. (2018) Brain Basics Understanding Sleep. Retrieved from: http://www.ninds.nih.gov/Disorders/Patient-Caregiver-Education/Understanding-Sleep