Staff Perspective: Two Weeks in Australia - A Memoir on Mitigating Jet Lag and Feeding Kangaroos
I don’t have to tell you that jet lag can impact the first few days of travel, regardless of whether you’re on vacation or a deployment, and even if you’re only traveling through a couple of different time zones. Many of our physical and cognitive functions are regulated by our circadian rhythm, including alertness, logical reasoning, and appetite (Kryger, Roth, & Dement, 2016). So symptoms associated with jet lag – grogginess, mood changes, fatigue – result from a systemic mismatch between our personal circadian rhythm and the local time. In general, it takes about one day to adjust to each hour of time change when traveling across time zones. However, a recent trip to Australia, which is (on average) 16 hours ahead of my Eastern US time zone, would take some serious adjustments ahead of time.
