February 12, 2013 • 34 mins
It was only since 1958 that the Jet Age began, and jet lag became a real condition. Also known as desynchronosis, jet lag can lead to all manner of ailments, from sleeplessness to irritability to diabetes and cancer. Learn about how the body's natural clock runs normally and what happens when it gets out of whack when we cross time zones quickly.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
stuff you should know from dot com. Hey, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me is always
this Charles W. Chuck Bryant, who just flew in to
(00:20):
be here. Yeah, I was. I was on the concorde.
I was just in Paris. Dude, dude, I've seen a concorde.
Oh yeah, yeah the Air and Space Museum, UM, not
the one in downtown d C. But the one out
by Dullest Airport at the new museum. Oh my god,
it's awesome. I wanted on board so bad. But it's
(00:42):
like you're standing right next to and underneath a concorde.
It's cool. They also have like Discovery Space Shuttle Discovery,
You're standing right next to that. It's a really neat museum.
Why did the end up grounding the concorde? Was it
not cost deficient? It was it wasn't and like any
time there was any kind of problem, like every and
died really oh my god. Yeah. But also the US
(01:05):
UM outlawed supersonic air travel, so like you couldn't fly
across the interior of the continent UM, which cut out
like a lot of revenue source. Yeah, so basically it's
just um and I don't think Air France or British
Airways ever even broke even in all those years. Yeah.
(01:27):
But and then in two thousand and three there was
that most recent crash, that last crash, and after that
that was it for the Concord. Yeah, I think, um,
if I'm not mistaken, my friend Justin who you know,
his mom, when they had like some final flights of
the Concorde flight of the Concorde, she went on one
of those as uh like just to do it. I
(01:47):
think I'm gonna be wrong with that, but I seem
to remember that from my past. You could go from
London to New York in five hours what is usually
like eight? Yeah, eight or nine or something. And do
you remember when Phil Collins played band Aid. He played
a show in London and got on the Concord, flew
to New York and then played a show there like
in the same night. That was pretty cool. Was it
(02:09):
live age? But you know what's the difference. The one
thing I knew was that it wasn't far made Phil Collins.
Did he play Farmade? I don't think so. That was
more Willie Willie and Mellencamp and Neil Young and all
those cats. Yeah so, um, Phil Collins flying back and
forth between London and New York to deliver his concert.
(02:31):
Thank god that happened. I love Phil Collins. I think that.
Oh yeah, dude, Um, that wouldn't have been possible had
it not been for something that we like to call
the jet age. Starting around the late fifties, the jet
became the preferred motive travel, which, interestingly, a ticket on
(02:52):
a jet was actually less than a ticket on like
a propeller piston engine planet. Yeah, interest isn't that interesting? Um,
But in the late fifties you had mcdonnald, Douglas and
Boeing really kind of duking it out to create the
jet to get people very quickly from one part of
the country to another. And it opened up commercial air
(03:14):
travel and all of a sudden, you didn't have to
be the richest person in the world to get from
you know, New York to l A, you know, without
having to drive. We're taking forever to get there a train,
prop plane, whatever, and admitted jet lag essentially, Well, there
you go, thanks for finishing my intro for me. Well,
(03:36):
we've only been around Well, we've been leaping time zones
for less than a hundred years, so there are some
beliefs that eventually we may evolve out of jet lag,
but for now, we haven't been doing it long enough.
It's our bodies to even know what the heck is
going on, right, And that's pretty much what jet lag is.
(03:57):
Our body does not know what's going on. There's another
term for jet leg It's called desynchronosis. It's a great
word for it. Yeah, your body has a biological clock,
and it when you travel from one times onto another
in fairly short order, your body gets out of sync
with its environment and all of a sudden, all the
(04:18):
cues that uses to regulate itself and all sorts of
things that your body does, it gets out of sync.
And what happens when you get out of sync, Well,
there's a lot of stuff that happens, Chuck, I'm glad
you asked that. Um. You can have cognitive problems, problems
thinking and problem solving and just general mental problems short
(04:41):
term of course and temporary, but you're not thinking quite right.
Health problems. Um. There is a study in two thousand
six UM from the University of Virginia that found out
that um lab rats who were given jet lag, who
were exposed to simulate a jet lag, which is basically
I think a DC to Paris flight once a week
(05:05):
for I guess most of their lives. Probably older ones
died much more quickly than younger ones. So if you're old,
which I've noticed that my jet LaGG has gotten worse
as I've aged. For sure. I didn't used to get
jet lagged at all. Yeah, I didn't know what the
big problem was, and now it's like one of the
worst things that can never happen to you. Well yeah, uh, fatigue, alertness, irritability, disorientation, depression,
(05:32):
gas intestinal illnesses. Yeah, that really mess you up. That
comes from flying to get air gas. It was just
the change in pressure like creates real gas. It's not
like methane or anything. It's just like gas bubble in
your guts. So she's like fart a lot on planes
or after you you can as a result. Sure, and
(05:53):
you know what you should do. People. By the way,
I'm gonna insert some flying etiquette here in there. Are
you gonna get up, go the bathroom and fart? Don't
fart in your seat? Why are you looking at me? Well,
because you're a cross room me now, I just you
know me and flying now it's just so annoying to
me because it's like a eighteenth century, you know, bus station.
(06:15):
These days when you were flying to your laughing, everybody's
wearing like pajamas and like teenage girls with their boots.
Oh my gosh, it's stressed appropriately. You don't even have
to dress up. But it's like, like, I don't want
to see what you look like in your living room,
you know. I know, Well, you take your shoes off,
(06:36):
which is something I'm There's nothing wrong with that because
my feet do not smell. If my feet smelled in
my shoes smell, I wouldn't take them off. I'm very,
very aware of that kind of thing. But it's funny
that you bring that up because the other night I
watched Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, which is that movie really
holds up um and John Candy takes his shoes off
(06:57):
and then it takes the socks off, and I, well,
I don't take my socks off, right, But I thought
of you, because I know that you think that's a
terrible thing to do. Yeah, I just think you should
remain fully clothed when you're out in public like that.
I'm cool with taking the shoes off as long as
the socks stay on and your feet. Don'est thing. But okay,
So so you're on a plane, you're You've got all
(07:17):
these symptoms awaiting you, and if you are um part
of the percent of Americans, you are going to get
jet lag. Yeah, I wonder what's going on with a
six percent. They're probably like younger people who don't know
what they're talking about. Do you think, yes? Interesting? Because
this biological I just I bet you there's something to
(07:39):
that six percent. Besides, you're five years old, you think
I doubt if they interviewed a lot of five year
old about jet lag for the study, well not five,
but I mean like when I was I was like,
what's everyone's problem with jet Like I don't understand what
they're talking about. So and I specifically remember being interviewed
to ask if I got it, like, and I remember going,
(08:03):
but it is a problem. It's unpleasant for some people.
But if you're in the military or if you're some huge,
big shot CEO, they worry that, you know, it could
impair you as a pilot or as a soldier or
as a big thinker and the head of a company
or deal closer. Yeah, you don't want some some jet
lags CEO lady going in there and not making good
(08:25):
decisions and making a bad deal. How can you be
a game changer if you don't have your a game on.
That's got to be the motto of some company. It
probably I thought, I just made it up. I know
they plugged somebody like price Pister or something. Uh. And
(08:45):
then what was the other study in two thousand ten
the Universe at cal it'd a study of hamsters and
it said that um on the health tip that the
the lab rats created new neurons at about half the
rate of of rats who didn't fly. So yeah, that's
not good. No, your brain is literally not functioning as
well as it should. It's not growing. Nope. Um And
(09:07):
I said about the dying from that study about rats
dying from being exposed to jet lag, you know the
older ones. And um, they've also found that in humans
you can have a harder menstruation if you're a lady,
um and uh, you can develop heart disease and diabetes
(09:28):
more readily. Basically, your entire body is just totally thrown
out of whack. You're hungrier at weird times. You're just
out of it. You're you just don't feel good, stressed out.
You have a lot of stress hormones going. So what's
going on, Chuck? What is jet lag? Jet lag? Well,
(09:50):
we need to talk about the biological clock that we
all have. It's basically, uh, the article here describes it
of groupings of interacting molecules and cells throughout the body.
That's a good way to say it. Everything's working together. Uh,
they tell our glands, Hey, release these hormones at this
time of day to make you sleepy, melatonin, which we'll
get to a more detail. Maybe adjust your body temperature.
(10:11):
It's a couple of hours where you're gonna wake up,
so let's make you really hot for some reason. And
the body is all in tuned with each other, all
these things firing like uh, the master time piece. Who
wrote this anyway, this was a pretty good petric. He's
done some good stuff. Yeah, it is a master time piece.
(10:31):
And uh, there are twenty thousand nerve cells called the
super chismatic nucleus we'll called the sc N. It's at
the front of the brain, right near the optic nerve,
and that is what keeps your circadian rhythm and your
sleep and waking cycles going like clockwork. That's it. That's
the biological clock. The sec it's pretty neat. Um and
(10:53):
the fact that it's located by the optic nerve is
kind of telling. Yeah, because one of the ways that
it sets itself, it actually has as it's on a
set cycle twenty four point six five hour cycle, and
it's since it's off a little bit um, it uses
cues to reset itself. And one of the big cues
it uses is natural light. Yeah. Some people think that
(11:13):
it's the light that the brain is super photosensitive and
that light really is the key to everything there. Well, yeah,
like the pineal gland apparently, even though it's buried inside
the brain is very light responsive, and the pineal gland
is one of the things that makes or it makes melatonin,
which has to do with sleep cycles. Melatonin is the
(11:34):
good sleepy time stuff. So, um, you this whole, this
whole rhythm, that twenty four point six five hour cycle
is called your circadian rhythm, circadian rhythm, and um, when
it's time to sleep, when it's about the time that
you went to sleep the night before, and it's dark out,
your brain's melatonin production increases, and also you've been building
(11:58):
up in your head all day. This stuff called a
Dina sign, right, and that they recently found has been
linked to um being sleepy. What's called sleep pressure. You know,
when you try to stay up and you're just getting
sleepier and sleeper, it's harder and harder to resist. That
experience is called sleep pressure. And they think that it's
a Dina sign responsible for that, and it accumulates in
(12:19):
the brain until finally about the time that you should
be falling asleep, the sleep pressure is just too much
to overcome and you fall asleep. Yeah, my Uhi Emily's family,
my Ohio family has a lot of sleep pressure. We
call it the yearly gas leak over the holidays. It's
funny and I'll look up at like seven forty five,
will be watching TV and like everybody's asleep after like
(12:43):
a big turkey dinner or something like that, Well, after
drinking all day and eating stuff like that, and it's
all warm and toasty, so I get it, but it's
still kind of funny. Well, it's called the gas and
you just made me feel so cozy. In that description,
it is in a very cozy household. Um, so you
get the mellet tone and production increased, you got a
DNA sign built up, and you reach that sleep pressure
(13:04):
threshold and all this stuff is kind of going on
this general pattern that's a tune to you and your rhythms.
You know, are you a night owl? Do you like
to get up early? Do you like to sleep in late?
Like this is your own circadian rhythm. Yeah, And if
you mess any of that up without flying, you're gonna
be thrown out of sorts. If you're a night owl
(13:25):
and all of a sudden you get a job or
you gotta get up super early, it's gonna suck for
a little while until your body adjusts. It is gonna
suck for a little while. Um. And it takes a
while for the body to adjust. But it also we
we've never really, except for the last sixty years, we've
never really had the capability of exposing the body to
a sudden shock of just falling out of rhythm like that.
(13:49):
Like I'm flying to Australia right exactly where there's like
a twelve or thirteen hour difference. Man, I've never I've
done the europe thing, but I've never experienced yet like
to that degree, I'm imagine that it would take me
quite a while to adjust. It does, and it sucks
because it takes away a percentage of your vacation almost.
It definitely does. When when you and I went to
(14:10):
Japan got there, we flew there, we flew um west
to east, no east to west, because we flew up
in over Canada and down Russia. It was but even still,
like when we got there, it was like three in
the morning and we're just like wide away and that
took a very little while to adjust. But when we
(14:32):
flew west to east on the way back get killed.
It took two solid weeks being almost like clinically out
of our minds before we got back on our seap.
That actually, you were pretty wacky. Do you remember There
was a period where like the first four days when
we got up, we would we both wake up in
the middle of the night. I wouldn't even talk. We
(14:54):
just get up and go out to the car and
drive to crystals and like eat some crystals and go
back home and go to bed, and like we've never
done that before and haven't done it since, but like
we just did it for like four nights in a
row because of jet like, so we're doing stuff like
that all the time. But yeah, going from west to
east is the worst, and especially if it's like that
was the thirteen hour time difference. Yeah, what do they
(15:15):
call that? It's a phase delay going east to west,
in a phase advance going west to east. And it's
kind of like you can look at it like if
your if your clock, if you're looking at a clock
in your bedtime is a set time. In phase delay,
you're just taking that hour hand and moving it back,
So you're just putting off your bedtime a little longer.
With phase advance, you're moving that our hand closer suddenly
(15:37):
to your bedtime, even though your body is not ready
to sleep. It's bedtime now. Well, it's just interesting that
the body under you know, I mean, it makes sense.
I guess what I find interesting is that we've figured
out a way to technologically and artificially subject the body
to like this kind of shock, and that it responds
the way that it does. You know that it's it
(15:59):
starts like overproducing this horm when you're under producing that
horn vine and you go crazy. Well, yeah, and since
you mentioned it, that's one of the things that happened.
It really, It literally disrupts biological functions, releases stress hormones,
drives up your blood pressure since inflammation, stimulating chemical markers
through your arteries. Um, it's gonna mess up your appetite,
(16:20):
like you said, because you're used to eating it regular times,
and that's why you're eating crystal because it was that
was probably a dinner time in Japan, I guess. Yeah,
But haven't you ever noticed, like when you get up early,
like say you have an early flight or something like,
you can get up at a normal time, say you
normally get up at eight, Yeah, you're you're maybe you're
a little hungry or whatever, but you could skip breakfast.
It's not a big deal. But if you're up and
(16:41):
like moving around and at six or something like that,
for some reason, you're just starving. Like, hasn't that ever
happened to you? Yeah, I'm usually not super hungry in
the morning, regardless of what time I wake up. If
I'm up really early, I am ravenous for some reason.
And I'll also find and I've always wonder what this was,
that I I'm not as hungry if I don't eat anything,
but if I have like the banana. Then it just
(17:04):
makes me super hungry, yea. Or have you noticed if
you have like red meat the night before, whenever you
get up the next day, you're just ravenous, too real? Yeah,
that happens to me. Interesting. I don't need a lot
of red meat anymore, but I'll you don't, no, I
mean just because Emily doesn't so, but you know, I'll
still have my steak every now and then. What are
you eating these days? I mean, same thing I've always
(17:25):
been eaten since I've been with Emily, which is a
lot of chicken and turkey and fish. What kind of fish? Uh?
It depends. I'll make like talapia tacos or grilled salmon
or like, uh, what's the more flaky? Like not ma
he but I'll eat my he to the flounder. Yeah, yeah,
I'll just go to the farmer's market. What looks what
(17:45):
looks good and fresh? You know they just took mackerel
off the Safe to eat or or Fine to Eat
Environmentally list. I didn't know it was on that. Yeah. Tuna,
of course, love tuna, oh man. But you shouldn't need
a ton of tuna either, I think the market. Oh
is that right? Yeah? I eat a lot of raw tuna.
Yeah that they say that. You know, Jeremy Piven supposedly
(18:05):
had some sort of mercury poisoning for meeting too much sushi,
which is why, Yeah, he had to bag out of
some movie or show because of it. But then I
think later on they said no, I think he was
using as an excuse and it wasn't verified that he
had mercury poisoning. That's a lot like the twinkie defense.
It meant, yeah, Jeremy Piven had the tuna defense. But
(18:26):
that's why they'd say, if you're pregnant, you shouldn't need
a lot of Yeah, yeah, for sure. Man, that was
a sidetrack. I think I'm hungry, is what. Alright? So
why is it so difficult to overcome Josh? Well, like
we said, um, your bodies, your buddy's circadian rhythm is
not exactly twenty four hours, twenty four point six five hours,
(18:49):
and so every day you're ready for sleep a little
later and a little later and a little later. And
that's why, at least Patrick Tiger thinks you are. It's
easier to adjust going from east to west, because that
means you're gonna have to stay up later to hit
your normal bedtime. Anyway, since we're already kind of doing that,
(19:09):
it's not that big of a deal. And it's not
just him. I think that's proven. Like NASA says the
same thing. Well, NASA and Patrick. Another reason is is
not just light body temperature we said fluctuates. Um, it's
minimum temperature. Oh I'm sorry, I thought it was maximum
three hours before you get up. It's minimum temperature. Yeah, alright.
(19:32):
I thought you like got really hot, like right before
you woke up. You might, but Team in is typically
three hours before you normally awake. And they found that
if you're if you have to wake up like during
Team in what your body is normally used to being
at Team in, that's when your jet legs the absolute worst. Um.
(19:54):
And I think it's because that's a cue that your body,
your whole body has. It's like, Okay, we're will in
deep sleep and we're going to be in a while,
and then all of a sudden, it's like I have
to wake up and go to this meeting. The body's
not it's it's whacked out of its normal process of waking.
I wonder if that's sometimes if I get up super early.
I have a harder time warming up through the day.
I wonder if that has it makes a difference. I
(20:15):
would bet it does. Like if you're used to waking
up at a certain body temperature, you know it takes
care of that no matter what, every single time, no
matter why you're cold or how cold you are, go
spend fifteen minutes in a sauna and you will be
right as rain. It's just a miracle, would box. Yeah,
I do that with the hot shower, with the steam.
Sometimes it doesn't take with me really. Yeah. Sometimes like
(20:38):
I'll still get out of the shower and like I'm
chilled to the core. Still he's in there. Like I
will stay in there for a while and like really
try to heat up, and like most of the time,
like it will get my temperature like up some with
a saun it's like resetting it back to your normal
setting every time you're kind of cold. Though for a man,
(20:59):
like you're all chili, uh, when I'm not, And I
know I'm super hot. You are very hot, but I
think you're also a little cold. But it's pushed together
and we make a very well adjusted human body temperature wise. Um,
So ask anyone what their remedy is for jet lag,
and you'll get a ten different answers. As tender for people,
(21:21):
you get ten different answers. That's what you say. Um,
ask Bruce Willis what is he gonna say? Make fist
fits toes? Make fist with your toes. It's always been
one of my favorite things, and I've tried it and
it's silly. Of course it doesn't work, but I just
do it now because it wasn't die Hard Argyle told
him to do that. No, no no, no, that was on
the plane. I thought it was Argyle the driver. It was.
(21:44):
It was on the plane as they were flying in
and of course and die Hard. It was just to
set up to get him without choosing socks on because
I played a part in the movie. That's a good movie.
First one. She's name Fencer. Yeah. Um, But like I said,
some people use herbal remedies. Some people take melatonin, which
is not f the approved, but you can take melotonin
athetic melotonin. We should say this isn't this article It
(22:06):
tells you how much have taken win and we'll tell
you too, but we should also had a disclaimer. Melotonin
has interactions with drugs like diabetes drugs dinners um birth
control pills. You may want to check out what melatonin
might do with your medication before you take it. You
definitely should um. Some people just say, you know what,
(22:27):
I'm gonna take a red eye and I'm gonna take
some valume and drink some Scotch and just knock myself
out for the whole flight, and that'll do the trick
that works. If you want to die, explain well, there's
a thirty six year old woman who recently died of
a stroke because and she was otherwise healthy apparently, but
she passed out on a seven hour flight or went
(22:50):
to sleep or whatever. But she slept for seven hours
on a flight and developed thrombosis, which is a blood
clot and apparently it went from probably her leg to
her brain. And again when we went to Japan on
I think it was Japan Airlines, they make you get up. Yeah,
They're like, okay, it's like it's it's stretching time. Yeah,
(23:11):
and they show you how to do it, like sitting
down at your seat, but they're also like, why don't
you get up to walk around? So yeah, you kind
of have to because you can develop a fatal blood
clot just from sitting on a plane because of the
change in pressure and just sitting for that long. Yeah,
you're not supposed to sleep in a sitting position. The
body is meant to be horizontal and prone. But that's
just for rich people on fluck. Oh, like up in
(23:34):
first class now where they have the sleepers, that's they're
they're so obnoxious. They should put first class in the
back so you don't have to walk through that scene.
I know. The funniest is when they have like the
gauzy curtains separating first class coach and you can it's like,
I see that you're having a salad. I can see
your salad. That hotel looks nice. Give me some of
(23:55):
that salad. So there are all kinds of home remedy
in little lives, tales of what you can do. But
if you're an expert, like if you're NASA or if
you are Chicago's Rush University Medical Center, you have some
real advice, like gradually adjusting your circadian rhythm actually using
(24:17):
a lightbox, which is a lot of effort, but I
bet it works. It does. It also works for seasonal
effective disorder. Sure. Um, so there's actually I came across
the paper and all tweeted out and posted on Facebook
or something blog about it. We'll do something with it.
But um, because I couldn't get I couldn't get it
(24:38):
enough in time to really speak about it. But there's
there's this guy who came up with a paper that's
basically like a computational method for offsetting jet leg and
figuring out how to adjust your schedule accordingly. Is it
like this in the article someone? That's the impression that
I have, But it's like really detailed, but basically, um,
(24:59):
Chicago's Rush University Medical Center researchers say, what you want
to do is if you're going from west to east,
which is the devil one, Um, you want to start
going to bed an hour earlier every day. Yeah, and um,
like several days, maybe like five days before your trip,
you want to start going to bed an hour earlier.
(25:20):
And not just an hour earlier across the board, but
earlier and earlier and earlier. To wear right before your trip,
you're going to bed about five hours earlier. And if
you're gonna take melatonin and you've done all your research,
you want to take a half a half a milligram
of melatonin four and a half hours before bedtime and
then so you want to progressively push that time earlier
(25:42):
and earlier in the day as you're going to bed
earlier and earlier at night, and then when you wake up,
blast yourself with the light box. Yeah, well east to west.
That was west to east, east to west. You want
to not blast yourself with light. You want to like
work on glasses in the morning and avoid light in
the morning. But they say, use a light box at
(26:05):
your normal bedtime and stay up later, right, which makes sense.
It sounds pretty torture, it does. There's a New York
Times article too, called a Battle Plan for jet lag,
and um, they've they've done a study with Major League
Baseball actually because they travel a lot, and they said
that over two year span, teams that went eastward gave
(26:27):
up an average of one extra run per game. That interesting,
but um, they say, which is the old I guess
it's not a wives tale of NASA's confirming it. They
say it takes about one day per light per time
zone to to get back into that rhythm in general,
And they say the same thing, you gotta read to
regulate your exposure to light. Um, so when you get
(26:50):
in that hotel room. If you're traveling east, you gotta
expose yourself to light early in advanced a clock. Uh,
if you're traveling west, expose yourself to light at dust
and in the early part of the evening and delay
that clock. And they'd say, like, you know, close the curtains,
put a towel over your clock radio, like get it
as dark as possible. Don't look at any computer screens
(27:13):
and laptops. They say you shouldn't eat like a big
meal or a spicy food like the first day you
get there. Don't like dive right into that vacation because
that can mess you up as well. Gastro intestinely speaking,
and uh what else. Well, the CDC says they don't
have any suggestions other than like eat a balanced diet
(27:35):
and make sure you get some exercise. It's like, of
course you're gonna say that, c d C. Do you
have any other suggestions? And they say yes, wear the
loose clothing on the flight, avoid alcohol and well and
afterward they say that first day on vacation you should
be hit in the alcohol right either because I will
just mess up your sleep period. And then have you
(27:57):
heard of this thing called the val ki no v
a l k E team of scientists in Finland invented
this thing, and it because their belief is that the
brain is it's all about photosensitivity, and so they actually
it's sort of like an iPod, but instead of the
ear plugs, it emits light through your ear canal directly
to the brain, and they said it works. They tested
(28:20):
three fifty subjects over four years, and uh, I found
that there is definitely brain activity when the little Valki
is on, and that nine out of ten subjects felt
reduction and stress, uh seasonal depression and anxiety. And so
they're using it for winter blues and PMS and jet
lag and migraines, all sorts of stuff. Fantastic. I don't
(28:43):
know how much of this so I'm curious if it
is the price of an iPod or just the size
of an iPod. It's a good question. Yeah. I try it,
though I get pretty bad jet lag. That's like when
we go to do events. Now, I try to fly
out a day early just to sort of adjust. But
I can do east coast, west coast. It doesn't hit
me that bad. Um. Yeah, it's more like international that
(29:06):
gets me. Yeah, I haven't had it very bad, Like
when we went to the tc AS. It didn't. I
didn't seem out of sorts there or back. I get
a little lot of sorts do Yeah, but not super bad.
I'm glad, Chuck, Yeah, you got anything else? I got
nothing else? Okay? That was jet Leg everybody. Yeah, and uh,
that kind of goes in with our sleeping sweep. We've
(29:27):
done a bunch of those, like how much sleep do
you really need? Um? What was the one about the
sleep aid? Remember the sleep aide where like you could
stay up for forty eight hours without any sleep. I
don't remember the title of that one. Wants to do that?
I love my sleep. That was a good episode though.
Um yeah, a lot of people wish that you didn't
(29:47):
have to sleep. I would imagine, not me. Um, I'm
with you. I like sleep. If you want to hear
any of those, you can go to our website Stuff
you Should Know dot com and click on the podcast
page and to start searching, go to town. You're gonna
find some cool stuff. And if you want to read
this article how jet leg works, go to how stuff
works dot com and then the search bar type jet
Leg and it will bring up the spotty by an article. Uh,
(30:10):
and I said search bar. So it's time for listening
to me. Josh I called this a very sweet email
from Wendy, and I will be reading some of it
and summarizing some of it because it's super long. She
starts out, congratulations on the launch of your TV show.
Thank you. I've been reading online chatter and I hope
it's going comfortably for you behind the scenes, because you
(30:30):
hear these reactions. It's a bummer when those weird people
on the block who mow the lawn naked our pride
themselves on not being tricked into attending college. I think
that they are qualified critics. Hopefully you're all too experienced
by now to do more than laugh at the losers
and just keep doing what you enjoyed. So that's all.
That was very nice, and it came in a good
time because people could be mean. Man, people have a
(30:53):
kind of mean. But hey, we have a pretty picks again,
We've been doing this for years. We got the armor
on um. So anyway, that was very nice Wendy, and
then she just wants she's been meaning to write in
for several years. Thank us. She started listening after she
moved from Seattle to Burbank in two thousand eight, and
it was a pretty depressing time for her. She said,
to stay at home, mom, and we really got her
(31:16):
through that time. A year later she moved to Utah.
She kept downloading because Chuck was on board. It's nice
and it was like having my brothers around for an
hour or so every day. It was really nice. She said.
It was clear by that point, even if we didn't
know each other, that you guys will probably be friends
of mine if we knew each other, um, and you
would not only appreciate the wild cultural shift from Hollywood
(31:37):
in Salt Lake City, but also be more fascinated than
turned off by my strange family connections. And she didn't
explain with them. Man. Then she moved from Youthawt to
Massachusetts and she was eight months pregnant, and we really
helped her through that, and so she was super appreciative
of that. And then she says, this a long time ago.
You had a many side conversation about what romancement and
(32:01):
seemed to conclude that it was guys who had a
manly friend crush on another guy that they knew, and
they'd really enjoy hanging out with I don't think we
haven't been at that. No, that's commonly what the romance
is known as. I may be a woman, but I
do have a major friend crush on the guys you
filled in for the awesome friends and family that I've missed,
um intelligently shooting the breeze for the last while, almost
(32:23):
five years now. Yeah, so she's moving around and we've
we've helped her out. Its substituting for her. Smart friends,
keep podcasting, take care of yourselves. You know that in
the zombie apocalypse, I definitely have your backs. By the
way of my weapon of choice would be an iron
age Scandinavian sacks in one hand, a long handled axe
(32:44):
in the other, and a shotgun I could carry across
my back. So, Wendy, you are well armed from my lady,
and uh we'll be right by her sides. Thanks for that, Wendy. Yeah, um,
we're glad we could help you through the last five years.
Can you believe it's been like years? Pretty soon I
saw a tweet from a listener that said that they
(33:04):
were off to college and they started listening in eighth grade.
Well and Sarah are amazing eleven year old fan and
not fifteen. Oh man, that's nuts, and she's she's gonna
be driving soon. She is. I want to fix up
with my nephew. It's too bad they don't live in
the same state. Well, hey, we're living at uh. If
you want to tell us how we helped you out
(33:26):
um or helped you through some rough times and we're
just there for you, you know, like the pals we are.
We always want to hear that kind of thing. Indeed,
you can tweet to us at s y s K podcast.
Oh how about this? You can also tell us any
of your jet leg remedies. Yeah, I'd like to hear him. Um.
You can tweet to us at s y s K podcast.
You can join us on Facebook dot com. You can
(33:48):
send us a an email to Stuff Podcast at Discovery
dot com, and you can check us out on the web.
We have a new home a website. Are very own website.
It is appropriately called www. Dot stuff You should Know
dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics,
(34:10):
visit how Stuff works dot com. M brought to you
by Toyota. Let's go Places
Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
stuff you should know from dot com. Hey, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me is always
this Charles W. Chuck Bryant, who just flew in to
(00:20):
be here. Yeah, I was. I was on the concorde.
I was just in Paris. Dude, dude, I've seen a concorde.
Oh yeah, yeah the Air and Space Museum, UM, not
the one in downtown d C. But the one out
by Dullest Airport at the new museum. Oh my god,
it's awesome. I wanted on board so bad. But it's
(00:42):
like you're standing right next to and underneath a concorde.
It's cool. They also have like Discovery Space Shuttle Discovery,
You're standing right next to that. It's a really neat museum.
Why did the end up grounding the concorde? Was it
not cost deficient? It was it wasn't and like any
time there was any kind of problem, like every and
died really oh my god. Yeah. But also the US
(01:05):
UM outlawed supersonic air travel, so like you couldn't fly
across the interior of the continent UM, which cut out
like a lot of revenue source. Yeah, so basically it's
just um and I don't think Air France or British
Airways ever even broke even in all those years. Yeah.
(01:27):
But and then in two thousand and three there was
that most recent crash, that last crash, and after that
that was it for the Concord. Yeah, I think, um,
if I'm not mistaken, my friend Justin who you know,
his mom, when they had like some final flights of
the Concorde flight of the Concorde, she went on one
of those as uh like just to do it. I
(01:47):
think I'm gonna be wrong with that, but I seem
to remember that from my past. You could go from
London to New York in five hours what is usually
like eight? Yeah, eight or nine or something. And do
you remember when Phil Collins played band Aid. He played
a show in London and got on the Concord, flew
to New York and then played a show there like
in the same night. That was pretty cool. Was it
(02:09):
live age? But you know what's the difference. The one
thing I knew was that it wasn't far made Phil Collins.
Did he play Farmade? I don't think so. That was
more Willie Willie and Mellencamp and Neil Young and all
those cats. Yeah so, um, Phil Collins flying back and
forth between London and New York to deliver his concert.
(02:31):
Thank god that happened. I love Phil Collins. I think that.
Oh yeah, dude, Um, that wouldn't have been possible had
it not been for something that we like to call
the jet age. Starting around the late fifties, the jet
became the preferred motive travel, which, interestingly, a ticket on
(02:52):
a jet was actually less than a ticket on like
a propeller piston engine planet. Yeah, interest isn't that interesting? Um,
But in the late fifties you had mcdonnald, Douglas and
Boeing really kind of duking it out to create the
jet to get people very quickly from one part of
the country to another. And it opened up commercial air
(03:14):
travel and all of a sudden, you didn't have to
be the richest person in the world to get from
you know, New York to l A, you know, without
having to drive. We're taking forever to get there a train,
prop plane, whatever, and admitted jet lag essentially, Well, there
you go, thanks for finishing my intro for me. Well,
(03:36):
we've only been around Well, we've been leaping time zones
for less than a hundred years, so there are some
beliefs that eventually we may evolve out of jet lag,
but for now, we haven't been doing it long enough.
It's our bodies to even know what the heck is
going on, right, And that's pretty much what jet lag is.
(03:57):
Our body does not know what's going on. There's another
term for jet leg It's called desynchronosis. It's a great
word for it. Yeah, your body has a biological clock,
and it when you travel from one times onto another
in fairly short order, your body gets out of sync
with its environment and all of a sudden, all the
(04:18):
cues that uses to regulate itself and all sorts of
things that your body does, it gets out of sync.
And what happens when you get out of sync, Well,
there's a lot of stuff that happens, Chuck, I'm glad
you asked that. Um. You can have cognitive problems, problems
thinking and problem solving and just general mental problems short
(04:41):
term of course and temporary, but you're not thinking quite right.
Health problems. Um. There is a study in two thousand
six UM from the University of Virginia that found out
that um lab rats who were given jet lag, who
were exposed to simulate a jet lag, which is basically
I think a DC to Paris flight once a week
(05:05):
for I guess most of their lives. Probably older ones
died much more quickly than younger ones. So if you're old,
which I've noticed that my jet LaGG has gotten worse
as I've aged. For sure. I didn't used to get
jet lagged at all. Yeah, I didn't know what the
big problem was, and now it's like one of the
worst things that can never happen to you. Well yeah, uh, fatigue, alertness, irritability, disorientation, depression,
(05:32):
gas intestinal illnesses. Yeah, that really mess you up. That
comes from flying to get air gas. It was just
the change in pressure like creates real gas. It's not
like methane or anything. It's just like gas bubble in
your guts. So she's like fart a lot on planes
or after you you can as a result. Sure, and
(05:53):
you know what you should do. People. By the way,
I'm gonna insert some flying etiquette here in there. Are
you gonna get up, go the bathroom and fart? Don't
fart in your seat? Why are you looking at me? Well,
because you're a cross room me now, I just you
know me and flying now it's just so annoying to
me because it's like a eighteenth century, you know, bus station.
(06:15):
These days when you were flying to your laughing, everybody's
wearing like pajamas and like teenage girls with their boots.
Oh my gosh, it's stressed appropriately. You don't even have
to dress up. But it's like, like, I don't want
to see what you look like in your living room,
you know. I know, Well, you take your shoes off,
(06:36):
which is something I'm There's nothing wrong with that because
my feet do not smell. If my feet smelled in
my shoes smell, I wouldn't take them off. I'm very,
very aware of that kind of thing. But it's funny
that you bring that up because the other night I
watched Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, which is that movie really
holds up um and John Candy takes his shoes off
(06:57):
and then it takes the socks off, and I, well,
I don't take my socks off, right, But I thought
of you, because I know that you think that's a
terrible thing to do. Yeah, I just think you should
remain fully clothed when you're out in public like that.
I'm cool with taking the shoes off as long as
the socks stay on and your feet. Don'est thing. But okay,
So so you're on a plane, you're You've got all
(07:17):
these symptoms awaiting you, and if you are um part
of the percent of Americans, you are going to get
jet lag. Yeah, I wonder what's going on with a
six percent. They're probably like younger people who don't know
what they're talking about. Do you think, yes? Interesting? Because
this biological I just I bet you there's something to
(07:39):
that six percent. Besides, you're five years old, you think
I doubt if they interviewed a lot of five year
old about jet lag for the study, well not five,
but I mean like when I was I was like,
what's everyone's problem with jet Like I don't understand what
they're talking about. So and I specifically remember being interviewed
to ask if I got it, like, and I remember going,
(08:03):
but it is a problem. It's unpleasant for some people.
But if you're in the military or if you're some huge,
big shot CEO, they worry that, you know, it could
impair you as a pilot or as a soldier or
as a big thinker and the head of a company
or deal closer. Yeah, you don't want some some jet
lags CEO lady going in there and not making good
(08:25):
decisions and making a bad deal. How can you be
a game changer if you don't have your a game on.
That's got to be the motto of some company. It
probably I thought, I just made it up. I know
they plugged somebody like price Pister or something. Uh. And
(08:45):
then what was the other study in two thousand ten
the Universe at cal it'd a study of hamsters and
it said that um on the health tip that the
the lab rats created new neurons at about half the
rate of of rats who didn't fly. So yeah, that's
not good. No, your brain is literally not functioning as
well as it should. It's not growing. Nope. Um And
(09:07):
I said about the dying from that study about rats
dying from being exposed to jet lag, you know the
older ones. And um, they've also found that in humans
you can have a harder menstruation if you're a lady,
um and uh, you can develop heart disease and diabetes
(09:28):
more readily. Basically, your entire body is just totally thrown
out of whack. You're hungrier at weird times. You're just
out of it. You're you just don't feel good, stressed out.
You have a lot of stress hormones going. So what's
going on, Chuck? What is jet lag? Jet lag? Well,
(09:50):
we need to talk about the biological clock that we
all have. It's basically, uh, the article here describes it
of groupings of interacting molecules and cells throughout the body.
That's a good way to say it. Everything's working together. Uh,
they tell our glands, Hey, release these hormones at this
time of day to make you sleepy, melatonin, which we'll
get to a more detail. Maybe adjust your body temperature.
(10:11):
It's a couple of hours where you're gonna wake up,
so let's make you really hot for some reason. And
the body is all in tuned with each other, all
these things firing like uh, the master time piece. Who
wrote this anyway, this was a pretty good petric. He's
done some good stuff. Yeah, it is a master time piece.
(10:31):
And uh, there are twenty thousand nerve cells called the
super chismatic nucleus we'll called the sc N. It's at
the front of the brain, right near the optic nerve,
and that is what keeps your circadian rhythm and your
sleep and waking cycles going like clockwork. That's it. That's
the biological clock. The sec it's pretty neat. Um and
(10:53):
the fact that it's located by the optic nerve is
kind of telling. Yeah, because one of the ways that
it sets itself, it actually has as it's on a
set cycle twenty four point six five hour cycle, and
it's since it's off a little bit um, it uses
cues to reset itself. And one of the big cues
it uses is natural light. Yeah. Some people think that
(11:13):
it's the light that the brain is super photosensitive and
that light really is the key to everything there. Well, yeah,
like the pineal gland apparently, even though it's buried inside
the brain is very light responsive, and the pineal gland
is one of the things that makes or it makes melatonin,
which has to do with sleep cycles. Melatonin is the
(11:34):
good sleepy time stuff. So, um, you this whole, this
whole rhythm, that twenty four point six five hour cycle
is called your circadian rhythm, circadian rhythm, and um, when
it's time to sleep, when it's about the time that
you went to sleep the night before, and it's dark out,
your brain's melatonin production increases, and also you've been building
(11:58):
up in your head all day. This stuff called a
Dina sign, right, and that they recently found has been
linked to um being sleepy. What's called sleep pressure. You know,
when you try to stay up and you're just getting
sleepier and sleeper, it's harder and harder to resist. That
experience is called sleep pressure. And they think that it's
a Dina sign responsible for that, and it accumulates in
(12:19):
the brain until finally about the time that you should
be falling asleep, the sleep pressure is just too much
to overcome and you fall asleep. Yeah, my Uhi Emily's family,
my Ohio family has a lot of sleep pressure. We
call it the yearly gas leak over the holidays. It's
funny and I'll look up at like seven forty five,
will be watching TV and like everybody's asleep after like
(12:43):
a big turkey dinner or something like that, Well, after
drinking all day and eating stuff like that, and it's
all warm and toasty, so I get it, but it's
still kind of funny. Well, it's called the gas and
you just made me feel so cozy. In that description,
it is in a very cozy household. Um, so you
get the mellet tone and production increased, you got a
DNA sign built up, and you reach that sleep pressure
(13:04):
threshold and all this stuff is kind of going on
this general pattern that's a tune to you and your rhythms.
You know, are you a night owl? Do you like
to get up early? Do you like to sleep in late?
Like this is your own circadian rhythm. Yeah, And if
you mess any of that up without flying, you're gonna
be thrown out of sorts. If you're a night owl
(13:25):
and all of a sudden you get a job or
you gotta get up super early, it's gonna suck for
a little while until your body adjusts. It is gonna
suck for a little while. Um. And it takes a
while for the body to adjust. But it also we
we've never really, except for the last sixty years, we've
never really had the capability of exposing the body to
a sudden shock of just falling out of rhythm like that.
(13:49):
Like I'm flying to Australia right exactly where there's like
a twelve or thirteen hour difference. Man, I've never I've
done the europe thing, but I've never experienced yet like
to that degree, I'm imagine that it would take me
quite a while to adjust. It does, and it sucks
because it takes away a percentage of your vacation almost.
It definitely does. When when you and I went to
(14:10):
Japan got there, we flew there, we flew um west
to east, no east to west, because we flew up
in over Canada and down Russia. It was but even still,
like when we got there, it was like three in
the morning and we're just like wide away and that
took a very little while to adjust. But when we
(14:32):
flew west to east on the way back get killed.
It took two solid weeks being almost like clinically out
of our minds before we got back on our seap.
That actually, you were pretty wacky. Do you remember There
was a period where like the first four days when
we got up, we would we both wake up in
the middle of the night. I wouldn't even talk. We
(14:54):
just get up and go out to the car and
drive to crystals and like eat some crystals and go
back home and go to bed, and like we've never
done that before and haven't done it since, but like
we just did it for like four nights in a
row because of jet like, so we're doing stuff like
that all the time. But yeah, going from west to
east is the worst, and especially if it's like that
was the thirteen hour time difference. Yeah, what do they
(15:15):
call that? It's a phase delay going east to west,
in a phase advance going west to east. And it's
kind of like you can look at it like if
your if your clock, if you're looking at a clock
in your bedtime is a set time. In phase delay,
you're just taking that hour hand and moving it back,
So you're just putting off your bedtime a little longer.
With phase advance, you're moving that our hand closer suddenly
(15:37):
to your bedtime, even though your body is not ready
to sleep. It's bedtime now. Well, it's just interesting that
the body under you know, I mean, it makes sense.
I guess what I find interesting is that we've figured
out a way to technologically and artificially subject the body
to like this kind of shock, and that it responds
the way that it does. You know that it's it
(15:59):
starts like overproducing this horm when you're under producing that
horn vine and you go crazy. Well, yeah, and since
you mentioned it, that's one of the things that happened.
It really, It literally disrupts biological functions, releases stress hormones,
drives up your blood pressure since inflammation, stimulating chemical markers
through your arteries. Um, it's gonna mess up your appetite,
(16:20):
like you said, because you're used to eating it regular times,
and that's why you're eating crystal because it was that
was probably a dinner time in Japan, I guess. Yeah,
But haven't you ever noticed, like when you get up early,
like say you have an early flight or something like,
you can get up at a normal time, say you
normally get up at eight, Yeah, you're you're maybe you're
a little hungry or whatever, but you could skip breakfast.
It's not a big deal. But if you're up and
(16:41):
like moving around and at six or something like that,
for some reason, you're just starving. Like, hasn't that ever
happened to you? Yeah, I'm usually not super hungry in
the morning, regardless of what time I wake up. If
I'm up really early, I am ravenous for some reason.
And I'll also find and I've always wonder what this was,
that I I'm not as hungry if I don't eat anything,
but if I have like the banana. Then it just
(17:04):
makes me super hungry, yea. Or have you noticed if
you have like red meat the night before, whenever you
get up the next day, you're just ravenous, too real? Yeah,
that happens to me. Interesting. I don't need a lot
of red meat anymore, but I'll you don't, no, I
mean just because Emily doesn't so, but you know, I'll
still have my steak every now and then. What are
you eating these days? I mean, same thing I've always
(17:25):
been eaten since I've been with Emily, which is a
lot of chicken and turkey and fish. What kind of fish? Uh?
It depends. I'll make like talapia tacos or grilled salmon
or like, uh, what's the more flaky? Like not ma
he but I'll eat my he to the flounder. Yeah, yeah,
I'll just go to the farmer's market. What looks what
(17:45):
looks good and fresh? You know they just took mackerel
off the Safe to eat or or Fine to Eat
Environmentally list. I didn't know it was on that. Yeah. Tuna,
of course, love tuna, oh man. But you shouldn't need
a ton of tuna either, I think the market. Oh
is that right? Yeah? I eat a lot of raw tuna.
Yeah that they say that. You know, Jeremy Piven supposedly
(18:05):
had some sort of mercury poisoning for meeting too much sushi,
which is why, Yeah, he had to bag out of
some movie or show because of it. But then I
think later on they said no, I think he was
using as an excuse and it wasn't verified that he
had mercury poisoning. That's a lot like the twinkie defense.
It meant, yeah, Jeremy Piven had the tuna defense. But
(18:26):
that's why they'd say, if you're pregnant, you shouldn't need
a lot of Yeah, yeah, for sure. Man, that was
a sidetrack. I think I'm hungry, is what. Alright? So
why is it so difficult to overcome Josh? Well, like
we said, um, your bodies, your buddy's circadian rhythm is
not exactly twenty four hours, twenty four point six five hours,
(18:49):
and so every day you're ready for sleep a little
later and a little later and a little later. And
that's why, at least Patrick Tiger thinks you are. It's
easier to adjust going from east to west, because that
means you're gonna have to stay up later to hit
your normal bedtime. Anyway, since we're already kind of doing that,
(19:09):
it's not that big of a deal. And it's not
just him. I think that's proven. Like NASA says the
same thing. Well, NASA and Patrick. Another reason is is
not just light body temperature we said fluctuates. Um, it's
minimum temperature. Oh I'm sorry, I thought it was maximum
three hours before you get up. It's minimum temperature. Yeah, alright.
(19:32):
I thought you like got really hot, like right before
you woke up. You might, but Team in is typically
three hours before you normally awake. And they found that
if you're if you have to wake up like during
Team in what your body is normally used to being
at Team in, that's when your jet legs the absolute worst. Um.
(19:54):
And I think it's because that's a cue that your body,
your whole body has. It's like, Okay, we're will in
deep sleep and we're going to be in a while,
and then all of a sudden, it's like I have
to wake up and go to this meeting. The body's
not it's it's whacked out of its normal process of waking.
I wonder if that's sometimes if I get up super early.
I have a harder time warming up through the day.
I wonder if that has it makes a difference. I
(20:15):
would bet it does. Like if you're used to waking
up at a certain body temperature, you know it takes
care of that no matter what, every single time, no
matter why you're cold or how cold you are, go
spend fifteen minutes in a sauna and you will be
right as rain. It's just a miracle, would box. Yeah,
I do that with the hot shower, with the steam.
Sometimes it doesn't take with me really. Yeah. Sometimes like
(20:38):
I'll still get out of the shower and like I'm
chilled to the core. Still he's in there. Like I
will stay in there for a while and like really
try to heat up, and like most of the time,
like it will get my temperature like up some with
a saun it's like resetting it back to your normal
setting every time you're kind of cold. Though for a man,
(20:59):
like you're all chili, uh, when I'm not, And I
know I'm super hot. You are very hot, but I
think you're also a little cold. But it's pushed together
and we make a very well adjusted human body temperature wise. Um,
So ask anyone what their remedy is for jet lag,
and you'll get a ten different answers. As tender for people,
(21:21):
you get ten different answers. That's what you say. Um,
ask Bruce Willis what is he gonna say? Make fist
fits toes? Make fist with your toes. It's always been
one of my favorite things, and I've tried it and
it's silly. Of course it doesn't work, but I just
do it now because it wasn't die Hard Argyle told
him to do that. No, no no, no, that was on
the plane. I thought it was Argyle the driver. It was.
(21:44):
It was on the plane as they were flying in
and of course and die Hard. It was just to
set up to get him without choosing socks on because
I played a part in the movie. That's a good movie.
First one. She's name Fencer. Yeah. Um, But like I said,
some people use herbal remedies. Some people take melatonin, which
is not f the approved, but you can take melotonin
athetic melotonin. We should say this isn't this article It
(22:06):
tells you how much have taken win and we'll tell
you too, but we should also had a disclaimer. Melotonin
has interactions with drugs like diabetes drugs dinners um birth
control pills. You may want to check out what melatonin
might do with your medication before you take it. You
definitely should um. Some people just say, you know what,
(22:27):
I'm gonna take a red eye and I'm gonna take
some valume and drink some Scotch and just knock myself
out for the whole flight, and that'll do the trick
that works. If you want to die, explain well, there's
a thirty six year old woman who recently died of
a stroke because and she was otherwise healthy apparently, but
she passed out on a seven hour flight or went
(22:50):
to sleep or whatever. But she slept for seven hours
on a flight and developed thrombosis, which is a blood
clot and apparently it went from probably her leg to
her brain. And again when we went to Japan on
I think it was Japan Airlines, they make you get up. Yeah,
They're like, okay, it's like it's it's stretching time. Yeah,
(23:11):
and they show you how to do it, like sitting
down at your seat, but they're also like, why don't
you get up to walk around? So yeah, you kind
of have to because you can develop a fatal blood
clot just from sitting on a plane because of the
change in pressure and just sitting for that long. Yeah,
you're not supposed to sleep in a sitting position. The
body is meant to be horizontal and prone. But that's
just for rich people on fluck. Oh, like up in
(23:34):
first class now where they have the sleepers, that's they're
they're so obnoxious. They should put first class in the
back so you don't have to walk through that scene.
I know. The funniest is when they have like the
gauzy curtains separating first class coach and you can it's like,
I see that you're having a salad. I can see
your salad. That hotel looks nice. Give me some of
(23:55):
that salad. So there are all kinds of home remedy
in little lives, tales of what you can do. But
if you're an expert, like if you're NASA or if
you are Chicago's Rush University Medical Center, you have some
real advice, like gradually adjusting your circadian rhythm actually using
(24:17):
a lightbox, which is a lot of effort, but I
bet it works. It does. It also works for seasonal
effective disorder. Sure. Um, so there's actually I came across
the paper and all tweeted out and posted on Facebook
or something blog about it. We'll do something with it.
But um, because I couldn't get I couldn't get it
(24:38):
enough in time to really speak about it. But there's
there's this guy who came up with a paper that's
basically like a computational method for offsetting jet leg and
figuring out how to adjust your schedule accordingly. Is it
like this in the article someone? That's the impression that
I have, But it's like really detailed, but basically, um,
(24:59):
Chicago's Rush University Medical Center researchers say, what you want
to do is if you're going from west to east,
which is the devil one, Um, you want to start
going to bed an hour earlier every day. Yeah, and um,
like several days, maybe like five days before your trip,
you want to start going to bed an hour earlier.
(25:20):
And not just an hour earlier across the board, but
earlier and earlier and earlier. To wear right before your trip,
you're going to bed about five hours earlier. And if
you're gonna take melatonin and you've done all your research,
you want to take a half a half a milligram
of melatonin four and a half hours before bedtime and
then so you want to progressively push that time earlier
(25:42):
and earlier in the day as you're going to bed
earlier and earlier at night, and then when you wake up,
blast yourself with the light box. Yeah, well east to west.
That was west to east, east to west. You want
to not blast yourself with light. You want to like
work on glasses in the morning and avoid light in
the morning. But they say, use a light box at
(26:05):
your normal bedtime and stay up later, right, which makes sense.
It sounds pretty torture, it does. There's a New York
Times article too, called a Battle Plan for jet lag,
and um, they've they've done a study with Major League
Baseball actually because they travel a lot, and they said
that over two year span, teams that went eastward gave
(26:27):
up an average of one extra run per game. That interesting,
but um, they say, which is the old I guess
it's not a wives tale of NASA's confirming it. They
say it takes about one day per light per time
zone to to get back into that rhythm in general,
And they say the same thing, you gotta read to
regulate your exposure to light. Um, so when you get
(26:50):
in that hotel room. If you're traveling east, you gotta
expose yourself to light early in advanced a clock. Uh,
if you're traveling west, expose yourself to light at dust
and in the early part of the evening and delay
that clock. And they'd say, like, you know, close the curtains,
put a towel over your clock radio, like get it
as dark as possible. Don't look at any computer screens
(27:13):
and laptops. They say you shouldn't eat like a big
meal or a spicy food like the first day you
get there. Don't like dive right into that vacation because
that can mess you up as well. Gastro intestinely speaking,
and uh what else. Well, the CDC says they don't
have any suggestions other than like eat a balanced diet
(27:35):
and make sure you get some exercise. It's like, of
course you're gonna say that, c d C. Do you
have any other suggestions? And they say yes, wear the
loose clothing on the flight, avoid alcohol and well and
afterward they say that first day on vacation you should
be hit in the alcohol right either because I will
just mess up your sleep period. And then have you
(27:57):
heard of this thing called the val ki no v
a l k E team of scientists in Finland invented
this thing, and it because their belief is that the
brain is it's all about photosensitivity, and so they actually
it's sort of like an iPod, but instead of the
ear plugs, it emits light through your ear canal directly
to the brain, and they said it works. They tested
(28:20):
three fifty subjects over four years, and uh, I found
that there is definitely brain activity when the little Valki
is on, and that nine out of ten subjects felt
reduction and stress, uh seasonal depression and anxiety. And so
they're using it for winter blues and PMS and jet
lag and migraines, all sorts of stuff. Fantastic. I don't
(28:43):
know how much of this so I'm curious if it
is the price of an iPod or just the size
of an iPod. It's a good question. Yeah. I try it,
though I get pretty bad jet lag. That's like when
we go to do events. Now, I try to fly
out a day early just to sort of adjust. But
I can do east coast, west coast. It doesn't hit
me that bad. Um. Yeah, it's more like international that
(29:06):
gets me. Yeah, I haven't had it very bad, Like
when we went to the tc AS. It didn't. I
didn't seem out of sorts there or back. I get
a little lot of sorts do Yeah, but not super bad.
I'm glad, Chuck, Yeah, you got anything else? I got
nothing else? Okay? That was jet Leg everybody. Yeah, and uh,
that kind of goes in with our sleeping sweep. We've
(29:27):
done a bunch of those, like how much sleep do
you really need? Um? What was the one about the
sleep aid? Remember the sleep aide where like you could
stay up for forty eight hours without any sleep. I
don't remember the title of that one. Wants to do that?
I love my sleep. That was a good episode though.
Um yeah, a lot of people wish that you didn't
(29:47):
have to sleep. I would imagine, not me. Um, I'm
with you. I like sleep. If you want to hear
any of those, you can go to our website Stuff
you Should Know dot com and click on the podcast
page and to start searching, go to town. You're gonna
find some cool stuff. And if you want to read
this article how jet leg works, go to how stuff
works dot com and then the search bar type jet
Leg and it will bring up the spotty by an article. Uh,
(30:10):
and I said search bar. So it's time for listening
to me. Josh I called this a very sweet email
from Wendy, and I will be reading some of it
and summarizing some of it because it's super long. She
starts out, congratulations on the launch of your TV show.
Thank you. I've been reading online chatter and I hope
it's going comfortably for you behind the scenes, because you
(30:30):
hear these reactions. It's a bummer when those weird people
on the block who mow the lawn naked our pride
themselves on not being tricked into attending college. I think
that they are qualified critics. Hopefully you're all too experienced
by now to do more than laugh at the losers
and just keep doing what you enjoyed. So that's all.
That was very nice, and it came in a good
time because people could be mean. Man, people have a
(30:53):
kind of mean. But hey, we have a pretty picks again,
We've been doing this for years. We got the armor
on um. So anyway, that was very nice Wendy, and
then she just wants she's been meaning to write in
for several years. Thank us. She started listening after she
moved from Seattle to Burbank in two thousand eight, and
it was a pretty depressing time for her. She said,
to stay at home, mom, and we really got her
(31:16):
through that time. A year later she moved to Utah.
She kept downloading because Chuck was on board. It's nice
and it was like having my brothers around for an
hour or so every day. It was really nice. She said.
It was clear by that point, even if we didn't
know each other, that you guys will probably be friends
of mine if we knew each other, um, and you
would not only appreciate the wild cultural shift from Hollywood
(31:37):
in Salt Lake City, but also be more fascinated than
turned off by my strange family connections. And she didn't
explain with them. Man. Then she moved from Youthawt to
Massachusetts and she was eight months pregnant, and we really
helped her through that, and so she was super appreciative
of that. And then she says, this a long time ago.
You had a many side conversation about what romancement and
(32:01):
seemed to conclude that it was guys who had a
manly friend crush on another guy that they knew, and
they'd really enjoy hanging out with I don't think we
haven't been at that. No, that's commonly what the romance
is known as. I may be a woman, but I
do have a major friend crush on the guys you
filled in for the awesome friends and family that I've missed,
um intelligently shooting the breeze for the last while, almost
(32:23):
five years now. Yeah, so she's moving around and we've
we've helped her out. Its substituting for her. Smart friends,
keep podcasting, take care of yourselves. You know that in
the zombie apocalypse, I definitely have your backs. By the
way of my weapon of choice would be an iron
age Scandinavian sacks in one hand, a long handled axe
(32:44):
in the other, and a shotgun I could carry across
my back. So, Wendy, you are well armed from my lady,
and uh we'll be right by her sides. Thanks for that, Wendy. Yeah, um,
we're glad we could help you through the last five years.
Can you believe it's been like years? Pretty soon I
saw a tweet from a listener that said that they
(33:04):
were off to college and they started listening in eighth grade.
Well and Sarah are amazing eleven year old fan and
not fifteen. Oh man, that's nuts, and she's she's gonna
be driving soon. She is. I want to fix up
with my nephew. It's too bad they don't live in
the same state. Well, hey, we're living at uh. If
you want to tell us how we helped you out
(33:26):
um or helped you through some rough times and we're
just there for you, you know, like the pals we are.
We always want to hear that kind of thing. Indeed,
you can tweet to us at s y s K podcast.
Oh how about this? You can also tell us any
of your jet leg remedies. Yeah, I'd like to hear him. Um.
You can tweet to us at s y s K podcast.
You can join us on Facebook dot com. You can
(33:48):
send us a an email to Stuff Podcast at Discovery
dot com, and you can check us out on the web.
We have a new home a website. Are very own website.
It is appropriately called www. Dot stuff You should Know
dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics,
(34:10):
visit how Stuff works dot com. M brought to you
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