By Leon Kreitzman
The Japanese call it Jisaboke and in French it is les effets du décalage horaire. Whatever the language, the symptoms of jet lag are the same the world over — fatigue, insomnia, disorientation, swelling limbs, loss of appetite, headaches, mood disturbances, bowel irregularity and light-headedness. Jet lag has also been implicated in loss of libido, nausea, sore throat, fall in cognitive performance and even an increased susceptibility to malaria.
It is not just unpleasant. Jet lag can start wars. In 1956, United States Secretary of State John Foster Dulles arrived back in Washington after a long flight to learn that the Egyptians had just bought a substantial amount of Russian arms. Dulles immediately canceled the agreement he had made with Colonel Nasser to bankroll the Aswan Dam project. The Suez Crisis that followed ended Britain’s imperial pretensions, and at the height of the Cold War the Russians had their first foothold in Africa.
Read the rest of the article over at The New York Times.
Leon Kreitzman, [is] an authority on questions of the body clock, like why jet lag happens . . . .”
Note from the Author of The Cure for Jet Lag: If you scroll down to the bottom of the page at The New York Times, you’ll see a great reference to Overcoming Jet lag, now called . . . The Cure for Jet Lag. I also left a comment.