If you’ve noticed that it takes longer to bounce back from a long-haul trip than it used to, it’s not your imagination. Jet lag tends to hit older travellers harder, and for Australians, whose dream holidays usually start with a 20-hour flight, that can mean losing several days of a trip to foggy heads and 3am wake-ups.
Now sleep experts at Flinders University in Adelaide have put decades of body clock research into a travel app they say can help travellers adapt to a new time zone much sooner.
As we get older, our internal body clock becomes less flexible. Melatonin, the hormone that helps regulate sleep, is produced in smaller amounts, and sleep tends to become lighter and more broken even at home.
The ageing eye also lets less light through to the parts of the brain that set the body clock. That makes light, the main tool for resetting it, less effective.
Research backs this up. A study of healthy adults aged 67 to 87, published in the Journal of Sleep Research, simulated jet lag by shifting participants’ sleep schedules by six hours. Their body clocks were slow to adjust in both directions. Shifting earlier, the equivalent of flying east, caused the most disruption, with less sleep, poorer alertness and slower recovery.
That’s bad news for Aussies flying home from Europe, a journey that usually means crossing up to 10 time zones eastward.
The Jetlag Fix was designed by Flinders University sleep and circadian scientists Professor Sean Cain and Professor Andrew Phillips, and developed with Circadian Health Innovations. It’s available for iPhone and Android.
The app builds a personal plan for each trip, based on your flights and your usual sleep times. It then tells you when to seek out light, when to avoid it and when to try to sleep, before, during and after your trip.
“Light is the strongest signal that resets the body clock, and light at the wrong time – even natural light – can make jetlag much worse,” says Professor Cain.
He says jet lag has two causes. Your body clock has to shift to the new time zone, which takes time and needs light at the right moments. And there’s travel fatigue, from poor sleep before, during and after each flight.
“Our science-backed computational model solves both of these problems simultaneously, providing the first general solution to jetlag for an individual traveller,” he says.
Because everyone’s needs differ, each plan is worked out from the traveller’s own sleep timing and preferred amount of sleep, as well as their route and travel dates. Once you’re on the move, the app shows in real time how your body clock is adjusting to the new time zone.
One of the most common pieces of jet lag advice is to get outside into the morning sunshine when you land. According to Professor Phillips, it’s often a gamble.
“Standard generic advice about overcoming jetlag – such as getting some morning sunlight – is often a coin flip as to whether it helps or hinders jetlag adaptation,” he says.
He gives the example of a typical London to Sydney flight that lands in the morning. “Getting natural light on landing makes jetlag worse,” he says.
Professor Phillips says this widespread bad advice is also what has trained AI tools, which is why bespoke advice for each trip is needed.
The app also gives each trip a “Jetlag Pain Score” out of 100, showing how hard the journey is likely to be on your body. It then shows how much the personalised plan could lower that score, and how many days sooner you’ll be fully adapted to your destination.
The scientists say many travellers will be surprised to learn that the same route can produce very different levels of jet lag, depending on the time of day you fly and which connecting flights you take.
“This score allows travellers to find better options for popular trips to and from Australia,” says Professor Cain.
For older travellers planning a big trip, it may be worth checking the score before you book. A different departure time or stopover could mean you spend more of your holiday enjoying it, and less of it lying awake at 3am.
This article is general in nature. If you have a sleep disorder, take medication that affects sleep, or are considering melatonin or sleeping tablets for travel, speak to your GP before you go.
Do you struggle with jet lag after a long-haul flight? What’s your best trick for getting back on track? Tell us in the comments.
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