Jet lag is a drag - but can it actually take years off your life?

I'm jet lagged. I actually had no problem adjusting to the flying east time change being six hours ahead in Paris. But coming back it's been harder. Problem is that this time of year I CAN'T make myself go to bed early. It's my favourite time of year to be up late. So when I woke up at 4am this morning and could feel my body wasn't going to go back to sleep I knew today might be a little rough.

Looking for blog content that feels relevant to me, I googled jet lag health impacts and came up with loads of stuff. The best thing I found was a study from 2006 that actually showed that mouse mortality rates sharply increased after traveling from Washington to Paris once a week for 8 weeks. Now they didn't actually put them on a mouse plane and simulated airport travel, the lines, customs and cramped space. They just messed around with them in a lab. In my opinion if you add all the additional travel annoyances, their results might have been even worse. Sitting next to a space hog for 9 hours can definitely shoot cortisol levels up. Every time the woman beside me hit me with her elbow or touched my foot with hers reminded me of the potential for a huge clausterphobia anxiety attack.

In the study, younger mice seemed to rebound more quickly and were not immediately harmed by the jet lag. Simulated jet lag conditions were created by advancing and delaying the rodent's exposure to light.

Researchers aren't sure what conclusions to draw from the results.

Gene Block, the report's co-author, said older mice might be more susceptible to sudden light changes than younger mice. Or, he said, jet lag might be a health problem that builds up in younger subjects, causing future maladies.

The researchers found that 53 percent of elderly mice died when they were subjected to a simulated weekly flight from Washington to Paris over the eight-week study. The death rate dropped to 32 percent of elderly mice on a simulated Paris-to-Washington route, according to the study, which was published last month in the journal Current Biology. Seventeen percent of the mice in a control group died in the eight-week study.

Taken from Washington Post "Red Flag for Jet Lag"

Now my easy adjustment going out east could be attributed to the magic white pills the woman sitting in front of me gave me to take. She said they were melatonin and they seemed to help but how I can be sure it was that. Personally, I think coming back from vacation is always harder than going and this might be the cause of the drag in my heels today. Some people do have systems for preparing their bodies for time changes. Personally, I'm too freakin busy to gradually change my sleep wake schedule pre-trip. Who has time accept someone who doesn't need a vacation?

I'm not going to travel any less and I'm certainly not going to limit my travel to the Western Hemisphere.

As Abraham Lincoln once said, “And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.”