Jet Lag In talking with my videographer friend he mentioned jet lag. My flight gets in to HK around 4:00 p.m. and I’ll spend some time going through customs and such. It’ll likely be about 7 by the time I get to my hotel. I figured unless something ultra-strange is happening I’ll be fine with it and I’ll just go to bed, wake up maybe a bit late the next day and all should be good. HK is about 15 hours ahead of my timezone, which is Pacific. Or that would be about 9 hours behind if you were to look at it that way. Anyway, it’s a significant change. My friend is coming from eastern timezone, so he’s got 12 hours difference there. One thing he mentioned was to consider fasting during your travel as that will help adjust the body’s natural internal clock. I thought this was very interesting, so I had to do some research. The only solid item I found was in the New England Journal of Medicine, but you have to be a paying customer to get it. So I found anecdotal stuff here and there, but nothing really deep. He was saying that the basic idea is to simply not eat until you have to a breakfast time of your destination. For me it’ll be great since I can land, get to bed and then wake up and have breakfast. For him, he’s arriving at about 7:00 a.m. So he’ll fast on the plane then eat once he lands. And then since we’ll be starting the day, hopefully he won’t be too groggy to be at least coherent. But I still found other things that I wanted to share. Some of it is rather “out there” so if I sound rather judgmental on these things is more about how I can’t ever see myself doing them, not necessarily thinking someone is foolish for doing it themselves. Here we go. I found an article on CNN, the link is here in the show notes. https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/9-alternative-jet-lag-strategies/index.html It’s called “9 alternative jet lag strategies.” First up is to use the hormone Melatonin. The body creates this naturally, but increasing the presence of Melatonin should help the circadian rhythm get adjusted more quickly. They recommend not taking it while in the air, but to do it at bed time once you’ve landed. It’s widely available at drug stores and of course, as with all things medically oriented, it’s best to talk with your doctor before you do anything like this. Just needing to cover myself there. This remedy is not for me. I’m just not one to hop on the drug bandwagon all that quickly. Even when I get a headache, I’d rather tough it out than take a Tylenol. I’ll pop the pill when needed for sure, but my preference is to not do anything. The next item is fasting, of all things. We’ve already talked about this, but this particular article only talks about a few items here, I’d love to have a much deeper article. If you know of one, please forward it on to me. They recommend refrain eating or drinking anything but water and herbal tea if you are looking to minimize jet lag. I won’t fast the whole flight but I’ll do at least half of it so I can go to bed on an empty stomach and hopefully awake ready for a huge breakfast. The next item up is called “earthing.” Well, these were “alternative” ways, right? Basically, the point here is to literally touch the earth at your destination. Take off your shoes and walk in the grass, the beach, whatever. It’ll change your mood and outlook. Seems more psychological than anything else, which can help, don’t get me wrong. But I look at this a bit oddly since it’s more along the lines of something I try to do naturally anyway. So, to have it as a suggestion for something different, to me, is more of a statement on society than anything else. As in, why isn’t this normal behavior already? Watsu is the next one. It’s a water-based relaxation therapy that is similar to a Japanese Shiatsu massage. They go into some detail, but quite frankly, getting relaxed and destressing is the point. If you can do that by just laying on the bed, or getting a massage then go for it. Another is Restricted Environment S