If you are planning a transatlantic trip for your next summer vacation get ready because it is not all fun. Do you know what jet lag is? Well, in no time you can experience it on your own flesh. Some people say that they do not suffer its effects but others … others have spent almost a week without knowing very well what world we lived in or what time it really was. And is that when 5 or more time zones are crossed, the internal clock (the one that regulates hunger and sleep cycles) goes crazy and is capable of mistreating you for several days, in theory one per hour that you have changed, and provoke you insomnia, general malaise, loss of appetite … This effect can be further aggravated when we travel to the east, for example to Japan.
But the worst thing is not that you have jet lag on your return, that is good, it is that you have it on the way out and you spend the first days of that trip that you have prepared with so much care made some foxes. It's not cool to arrive in Japan and that the first thing you do instead of going to eat that real sushi that you have been dreaming of for months, is to take a three-hour nap, the kind that leaves you half unconscious and with all the restaurants closed ( this is true). Fortunately, there are several tricks to avoid these annoying effects.
One that always works for me is sleeping on the plane, the bad thing is that I don't always get it. And at the prospect of repeating this unpleasant experience that I have already 'enjoyed' a few times, I have started to investigate and have discovered something that can save me from waking up at 3 in the morning with my eyes wider than a owl and then spend the day struggling to survive: melatonin tablets.
And what is melatonin? , you will ask yourself. Well, it is a hormone that our body secretes at night and that causes us that feeling of sleep. Upon perceiving sunlight, it stops segregating and we wake up. There are several studies that show that to reduce the effects of jet lagwe can take melatonin tablets. In fact, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine defends that taking it helps reduce jet lag symptoms and helps you sleep better after a long trip. But are not the only ones. Johns Hopkins University sleep expert Dr. Luis F. Buenaver notes: "Most people produce enough melatonin to be able to sleep on their own. However, there are shortcuts to improving that production such as taking a supplement for a short period of time. time if you suffer from insomnia or want to recover from jet lag. "
It is enough to take a melatonin tablet half an hour before we want to go to sleep. We can start doing it before leaving, to accustom our body to the new schedule or do it already on the plane, thinking about the time that it is already at our destination. But if you want, you can wait to see how you react because depending on the arrival time and whether or not you sleep on the plane, you may fall as soon as you step foot in the hotel.
The number of days to take it depends on each person. You must adapt the shots to how your body reacts to changes. When you start to feel sleepy at a normal time, you can stop taking melatonin, both on the way out and on the way back from your trip. In this way, you have helped your brain to regulate its sleep cycles based again on exposure to sunlight.
For tablets of less than 2 mg, you do not need a prescription but if you have any pathology or take medication regularly, you should consult your doctor or pharmacist beforehand to avoid possible interactions or adverse effects.
