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Selects: How Jet Lag Works · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Hey everybody, Good morning to you. If it's Saturday morning,
0:05
Speaker 1: good afternoon, if it's Saturday afternoon, good evening, or good night.
0:09
Speaker 1: If it's Saturday evening or night. And if it's not Saturday,
0:12
Speaker 1: then what are you even doing here? This is our
0:14
Speaker 1: Selects episode selection for the week. I am your co
0:18
Speaker 1: host Charles W Chuck Bryant, and I went with How
0:21
Speaker 1: jet Lag Works is from February twelfth, twenty thirteen. And
0:25
Speaker 1: jet lag is just a bit of a drag for
0:30
Speaker 1: anyone that travels over long distances. We've all probably felt
0:33
Speaker 1: it at one point or another, and this is a
0:37
Speaker 1: great explainer on exactly how it works and how you
0:39
Speaker 1: can best combat it. So enjoy, happy flying. Welcome to
0:47
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, and
0:56
Speaker 1: welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as
0:59
Speaker 1: always as Charles. To you, Chuck Bryant, who just flew
1:02
Speaker 1: in to be here. Yeah, I was, I was on
1:05
Speaker 1: the concord. I was just in Paris. Dude, dude, I've
1:08
Speaker 1: seen a concord. Oh yeah yeah. The Air and Space
1:11
Speaker 1: Museum m not the one in downtown DC, yeah, but
1:17
Speaker 1: the one out by Dullest Airport. At the new museum.
1:20
Speaker 1: Oh my god, it's awesome. I wanted on board so bad.
1:24
Speaker 1: But it's like you're standing right next to and underneath
1:27
Speaker 1: a concord. It's cool. They also have like Discovery Space
1:30
Speaker 1: Shuttle Discovery, You're standing right next to that. It's a
1:33
Speaker 1: really neat museum. Why did they end up grounding the concord?
1:36
Speaker 1: Was it not cost efficient? It was? It wasn't and
1:38
Speaker 1: like any time there was any kind of problem, like
1:41
Speaker 1: everyone died really oh my god. Yeah. But also the
1:47
Speaker 1: US outlaw and supersonic air travel, so like you couldn't
1:51
Speaker 1: fly across the interior of the continent, okay, um, which
1:57
Speaker 1: cut out like a lot of revenue source. Yeah. So
2:00
Speaker 1: basically it was just um and I don't think Air
2:02
Speaker 1: France or British Airways ever even broke even in all
2:07
Speaker 1: those years on Concord flights. Yeah. But and then in
2:10
Speaker 1: two thousand and three there was that most recent crash,
2:12
Speaker 1: that last crash, and after that that was it for
2:14
Speaker 1: the Concord. Yeah. I think, Um, if I'm not mistaken,
2:18
Speaker 1: my friend Justin who you know, his mom when they
2:21
Speaker 1: had like some final flights of the Concord, flight of
2:25
Speaker 1: the Concord Yeah, she went on one of those. Yeah,
2:27
Speaker 1: as like just to do it. I think I'd be
2:30
Speaker 1: wrong with that, but I seem to remember that from
2:32
Speaker 1: my past. You could go from London to New York
2:35
Speaker 1: in five hours? What is usually like eight? Yeah, eight
2:38
Speaker 1: or nine or something. Yeah. And do you remember when
2:42
Speaker 1: Phil Collins played Band Aid, he played a show in London,
2:45
Speaker 1: they got on the concord flute to New York and
2:46
Speaker 1: then played a show there. Yeah, like in the same night. Yeah,
2:49
Speaker 1: that was pretty cool. That was it live a Yeah,
2:53
Speaker 1: but you know what's the difference. The one thing I
2:55
Speaker 1: knew was that it wasn't far made Phil Collins. Oh
3:00
Speaker 1: did he play Farmade? I don't think so. That was
3:03
Speaker 1: more Willie Willie and Mellencamp and Neil Young and all
3:06
Speaker 1: those cats. Yeah. So, um, Phil Collins flying back and
3:09
Speaker 1: forth between London and New York to deliver his concert.
3:13
Speaker 1: So thank god that happened. I love Phil Collins, I
3:16
Speaker 1: think though, really, Oh yeah, dude, that wouldn't have been
3:23
Speaker 1: possible had it not been for something that we'd like
3:25
Speaker 1: to call the jet age. Yes. Starting around the late fifties,
3:29
Speaker 1: the jet became the preferred motive travel, which, interestingly a
3:33
Speaker 1: ticket on a jet was actually less than a ticket
3:36
Speaker 1: on like a propeller piston engine plane. Oh, relate first, Yeah, interesting,
3:42
Speaker 1: isn't that interesting? Yeah, But in the late fifties you
3:46
Speaker 1: had McDonnell, Douglas and Boeing really kind of duking it
3:49
Speaker 1: out to create the jet to get people very quickly
3:52
Speaker 1: from one part of the country to another. Yeah, and
3:55
Speaker 1: it opened up commercial air travel and all of a sudden,
3:59
Speaker 1: you didn't have to be the richest person in the
4:01
Speaker 1: world to get from you know, New York to la
4:05
Speaker 1: you know, without having to drive or taking forever to
4:09
Speaker 1: get there a train, prop plane, whatever. Yeah, and admit
4:13
Speaker 1: a jet lag essentially. Well, there you go, Thanks for
4:16
Speaker 1: finishing my intro for me. Well, we've only been around,
4:20
Speaker 1: we've been leaping time zones for less than a hundred years,
4:23
Speaker 1: so there are some beliefs that eventually we may evolve
4:29
Speaker 1: out of jet lag. Yeah, but for now, we haven't
4:32
Speaker 1: been doing it long enough. Now, it's been like fifty
4:34
Speaker 1: sixty years. Yeah, our bodies to even know what the
4:36
Speaker 1: heck is going on, right, And that's pretty much what
4:38
Speaker 1: jet lag is. Our body does not know what's going on. Yeah,
4:42
Speaker 1: there's another term for jet lag. It's called desynchronosis. That's
4:46
Speaker 1: a great word for it. Yeah, your body has a
4:49
Speaker 1: biological clock, and when you travel from one time zone
4:54
Speaker 1: to another in fairly short order, your body gets out
4:57
Speaker 1: of sync with its environment, and all of a sudden,
4:59
Speaker 1: all cues that uses to regulate itself and all sorts
5:04
Speaker 1: of things that your body does it gets out of sink.
5:08
Speaker 1: And what happens when you get out of sink, Well,
5:11
Speaker 1: there's a lot of stuff that happens, Chuck, I'm glad
5:14
Speaker 1: you asked that. You can have cognitive problems, problems thinking
5:19
Speaker 1: and problem solving and just general mental problems short term
5:24
Speaker 1: of course and temporary, but still you're not thinking quite right.
5:27
Speaker 1: Health problems. There is a study in two thousand and
5:30
Speaker 1: six from the University of Virginia that found out that
5:36
Speaker 1: lab rats who were given jet lag, who were exposed
5:40
Speaker 1: to simulated jet lag, yeah, which is basically I think
5:43
Speaker 1: a DC to Paris flight once a week for I
5:48
Speaker 1: guess most of their lives. Probably older ones died much
5:52
Speaker 1: more quickly than younger ones. Yes, so if you're old,
5:54
Speaker 1: which I've noticed that my jet lag has gotten worse
5:57
Speaker 1: as i've aged. Yeah, for sure, I didn't used to
6:00
Speaker 1: get jetlagged at all. Yeah, I didn't know what the
6:02
Speaker 1: big problem was, and now it's like one of the
6:05
Speaker 1: worst things that can ever happen to you. Yeah. Well yeah, fatigue, alertness, irritability, disorientation, depression,
6:14
Speaker 1: gas rontestinal illnesses. Yeah, it can really mess you up.
6:17
Speaker 1: That comes from flying too. Get air gas. It just
6:22
Speaker 1: the change in pressure like creates really gas. It's not
6:25
Speaker 1: like methane or anything. It's just like gas bubble in
6:28
Speaker 1: your guts. So you've like fart a lot on planes
6:31
Speaker 1: or after you got you can as a result. Sure,
6:35
Speaker 1: and you know what you should do. People. By the way,
6:37
Speaker 1: I'm gonna insert some flying etiquette here in there. Are
6:41
Speaker 1: you gonna get up and go to the bathroom and fart?
6:44
Speaker 1: Don't fart in your seat? Why are you looking at me? Well,
6:48
Speaker 1: because you're a cross room me. Okay, now, I just
6:51
Speaker 1: you know me and flying Now it's just so annoying
6:53
Speaker 1: to me because it's like a eighteenth century, you know,
6:56
Speaker 1: bus station these days when you were flying he laughing.
7:00
Speaker 1: Everybody's wearing like pajamas and like teenage girls with their boots.
7:05
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, it's stressed appropriately. You don't even have
7:09
Speaker 1: to dress up. But it's like, like, I don't want
7:12
Speaker 1: to see what you look like in your living room,
7:16
Speaker 1: you know. I know, Well, you take your shoes off,
7:18
Speaker 1: which is something I'm There's nothing wrong with that because
7:21
Speaker 1: my feet do not smell. If my feet smelled in
7:23
Speaker 1: my shoes smelled, I wouldn't take them off. I'm very,
7:26
Speaker 1: very aware of that kind of thing. But it's funny
7:28
Speaker 1: that you bring that up because the other night I
7:30
Speaker 1: watched Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, which is that movie really
7:35
Speaker 1: holds up, and John Candy takes his shoes off and
7:40
Speaker 1: it takes the socks off, and I thought, well, I
7:42
Speaker 1: don't take my socks off, right, But I thought of
7:46
Speaker 1: you because I know that you think that's a terrible
7:48
Speaker 1: thing to do. Yeah, I just think he should remain
7:49
Speaker 1: fully clothed when you're out in public like that. I'm
7:51
Speaker 1: cool with taking the shoes off, as long as the
7:53
Speaker 1: socks stay on and your feet don't stay But okay,
7:56
Speaker 1: so you're on a plane, You're you've got all these
8:00
Speaker 1: symptoms awaiting you, and if you are part of the
8:04
Speaker 1: ninety four percent of Americans, you are going to get
8:06
Speaker 1: jet lag. Yeah, I wonder what's going on with a
8:08
Speaker 1: six percent. They're probably like younger people who don't know
8:12
Speaker 1: what they're talking about. You think, yes, interesting because it's biological.
8:19
Speaker 1: I just I bet you there's something to that six percent. Besides,
8:22
Speaker 1: you're five years old, you think. I doubt if they
8:25
Speaker 1: interviewed a lot of five year olds about jet lack
8:27
Speaker 1: for the study, well not five, but I mean, like,
8:29
Speaker 1: I think I was American ager. I was like, what's
8:32
Speaker 1: everyone's problem with jet Like I don't understand what they're
8:35
Speaker 1: talking about. Yeah. So, And I specifically remember being interviewed
8:39
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety eight to ask if I got jetlag,
8:42
Speaker 1: and I remember going like, no, no, but it is
8:46
Speaker 1: a problem. It's unpleasant for some people. But if you're
8:49
Speaker 1: in the military, or if you're some huge, big shot CEO,
8:53
Speaker 1: they worry that, you know, could impair you as a
8:55
Speaker 1: pilot or as a soldier, or as a big thinker
8:59
Speaker 1: and the head of a company or deal closer. Yeah,
9:03
Speaker 1: you don't want some some jet lags ceo lady going
9:06
Speaker 1: in there and not making good decisions and making a
9:08
Speaker 1: bad deal. Yeah, how can you be a game changer
9:11
Speaker 1: if you don't have your a game on. That's got
9:15
Speaker 1: to be the motto of some company. It probably is.
9:19
Speaker 1: I thought I just made it up knowing the plug
9:21
Speaker 1: somebody like Price Fister or something. And then what was
9:28
Speaker 1: the other study? In two thousand and ten the Universe
9:29
Speaker 1: at cal they did a study of hamsters. Yeah, and
9:32
Speaker 1: it said that um on the health tip that the
9:36
Speaker 1: the lab rats created new neurons at about half the
9:39
Speaker 1: rate of rats who did not fly. So yeah, that's
9:43
Speaker 1: not good. Now your brain is literally not functioning as
9:46
Speaker 1: well as it should. It's not growing. Nope. Um, And
9:49
Speaker 1: I said about the dying from that study about rats
9:54
Speaker 1: dying from being exposed to jet lag, Yeah, the older
9:57
Speaker 1: ones and um, they've also found that in humans you
10:02
Speaker 1: can have a harder menstruation if you're a lady, and
10:08
Speaker 1: you can develop heart disease and diabetes more readily. Basically,
10:12
Speaker 1: your entire body is just totally thrown out of whack.
10:16
Speaker 1: You're hungrier at weird times. Sure, you're just out of it.
10:22
Speaker 1: You're you just don't feel good, stressed out, you have
10:25
Speaker 1: a lot of stress hormones going. So what's going on, Chuck?
10:30
Speaker 1: What is jet lag? Jet lag? Well, we need to
10:33
Speaker 1: talk about the biological clock that we all have. It's
10:36
Speaker 1: basically the article here describes it of groupings of interacting
10:39
Speaker 1: molecules and cells throughout the body. That's a good way
10:43
Speaker 1: to say it. Everything's working together. They tell our glands, Hey,
10:46
Speaker 1: release these hormones at this time of day to make
10:49
Speaker 1: you sleepy, melatonin, which we'll get to in more detail.
10:52
Speaker 1: Maybe adjust your body temperature. It's a couple hours where
10:54
Speaker 1: you're gonna wake up, so let's make you really hot
10:57
Speaker 1: for some reason. And the body is all in tuned
11:01
Speaker 1: with each other, all these things firing like a master timepiece.
11:07
Speaker 1: Who wrote this anyway? This was that was a pretty
11:10
Speaker 1: good Patrick Tiger. He's done some good stuff. Yeah, it
11:12
Speaker 1: is a master timepiece. And there are twenty thousand nerve
11:16
Speaker 1: cells called the super a chiasmatic nucleus we'll called the SCN.
11:21
Speaker 1: It's at the front of the brain, right near the
11:23
Speaker 1: optic nerve, and that is what keeps your circadian rhythm
11:27
Speaker 1: in your sleep and waking cycles going. Yeah, like clockwork.
11:30
Speaker 1: That's it. That's the biological clock the sea. Yep, it's
11:33
Speaker 1: pretty neat um And the fact that it's located by
11:36
Speaker 1: the optic nerve is kind of telling. Yeah, because one
11:39
Speaker 1: of the ways that it sets itself it actually has
11:41
Speaker 1: a it's on a set cycle twenty four point six
11:45
Speaker 1: five hour cycle. Yeah, and it's since it's off a
11:48
Speaker 1: little bit, um, it uses cues to reset itself. And
11:52
Speaker 1: one of the big cues it uses is natural light. Yeah.
11:55
Speaker 1: Some people think that it's the light, that the brain
11:58
Speaker 1: is super photosensitive, that light really is the key to
12:01
Speaker 1: everything there. Well, yeah, like the pineal gland apparently, even
12:04
Speaker 1: though it's buried inside the brain, is very light responsive.
12:08
Speaker 1: And the pineal gland is one of the things that
12:11
Speaker 1: makes or it makes melatonin, which has to do with
12:14
Speaker 1: sleep cycles. Melatonin is the good sleepy time stuff. So, um,
12:19
Speaker 1: this whole, this whole rhythm, that twenty four points sixty
12:22
Speaker 1: five hour cycle is called your circadian rhythm, circadian rhythm, right,
12:27
Speaker 1: And when it's time to sleep, when it's about the
12:32
Speaker 1: time that you went to sleep the night before and
12:34
Speaker 1: it's dark out, your brain's melatonin production increases. And also
12:40
Speaker 1: you've been building up in your head all day this
12:42
Speaker 1: stuff called a DNA sign right, and that they recently
12:46
Speaker 1: found has been linked to being sleepy. What's called sleep pressure.
12:51
Speaker 1: You know, when you try to stay up and you're
12:53
Speaker 1: just getting sleepier and sleeper it's harder and harder to resist.
12:56
Speaker 1: That experience is called sleep pressure, and they think that
12:58
Speaker 1: it's a DNA sign a response for that, and it
13:01
Speaker 1: accumulates in the brain until finally about the time that
13:04
Speaker 1: you should be falling asleep, the sleep pressure is just
13:06
Speaker 1: too much to overcome and you fall asleep. Yeah. My, uh,
13:10
Speaker 1: Emily's family, my Ohio family has a lot of sleep pressure.
13:15
Speaker 1: We call it the yearly gas leak over the holidays.
13:18
Speaker 1: That's funny, Emily. I'll look up at like seven forty five,
13:21
Speaker 1: We'll be watching TV and like everybody's asleep after like
13:25
Speaker 1: a big turkey dinner or something like that. Well, after
13:28
Speaker 1: drinking all day and eating, oh yeah, stuff like that. Yeah,
13:31
Speaker 1: and it's all warm and toasty, and so I get it,
13:34
Speaker 1: but it's still kind of funny. Well, it's called the
13:35
Speaker 1: gas leak, and you just made me feel so cozy
13:37
Speaker 1: in that description. It is in a very cozy household. Um,
13:41
Speaker 1: so you get the melatonin production increased, you got a
13:43
Speaker 1: DNA sign built up, and you reach that sleep pressure
13:46
Speaker 1: threshold and all this stuff is kind of going on
13:49
Speaker 1: this general pattern that's a tune to you in your rhythms. Yeah,
13:54
Speaker 1: you know, Are you a night owl? Do you like
13:56
Speaker 1: to get up early? Do you like to sleep in late?
13:58
Speaker 1: Like this is your own circadian rhythm. Yeah, and if
14:02
Speaker 1: you mess any of that up without flying, you're going
14:05
Speaker 1: to be thrown out of sorts. If you're a night
14:06
Speaker 1: owl and all of a sudden you get a job
14:08
Speaker 1: or you gotta get up super early, it's gonna suck
14:10
Speaker 1: for a little while until your body adjusts. It is
14:12
Speaker 1: gonna suck for a little while. Um, And it takes
14:16
Speaker 1: a while for the body to adjust. But it also
14:20
Speaker 1: we've never really, except for the last sixty years, we've
14:23
Speaker 1: never really had the capability of exposing the body to
14:26
Speaker 1: a sudden shock of just falling out of rhythm like that,
14:31
Speaker 1: Like I'm flying to Australia right exactly. Yeah, where there's
14:35
Speaker 1: like a twelve or thirteen hour difference. Man, I've never
14:38
Speaker 1: I've done the europe thing, but I've never experienced yet
14:41
Speaker 1: like to that degree. I imagine that it would take
14:42
Speaker 1: me quite a while to adjust. It does, and it
14:45
Speaker 1: sucks because it takes away a percentage of your vacation almost.
14:50
Speaker 1: It definitely does. When you know, when you me and
14:52
Speaker 1: I went to Japan, Yeah, got there out of bed.
14:54
Speaker 1: We flew there, we flew west to east, No, east
15:01
Speaker 1: to west, because we flew up and over Canada and
15:04
Speaker 1: down Russia, which is easier can it was supposedly, but
15:07
Speaker 1: even still, like when we got there, it was like
15:09
Speaker 1: three in the morning and we're just like wide away. Yeah,
15:12
Speaker 1: and that took a very little while to adjust. But
15:14
Speaker 1: when we flew west to east on the way back
15:16
Speaker 1: get killed. It took two solid weeks of being almost
15:21
Speaker 1: like clinically out of our minds. Wow, before we got
15:25
Speaker 1: back on our sleep. For that, actually, you were pretty whacky,
15:27
Speaker 1: do you remember. Oh, yeah, there was a period where
15:30
Speaker 1: like the first four days when we got up, we
15:32
Speaker 1: would we would both wake up in the middle of
15:33
Speaker 1: the night, wouldn't even talk. We'd just get up and
15:36
Speaker 1: go out to the car and drive to crystals and
15:39
Speaker 1: like eat some crystals and go back home and go
15:41
Speaker 1: to bed. Yeah, and like we'd never done that before
15:43
Speaker 1: and haven't done it since. But like we just did
15:45
Speaker 1: it for like four nights in a row because of
15:47
Speaker 1: jet like, so we were doing stuff like that all
15:49
Speaker 1: the time. That's weird. But yeah, going from west to
15:52
Speaker 1: east is the worst, and especially if it's like that
15:55
Speaker 1: was a thirteen hour time difference. Yeah, what do they
15:57
Speaker 1: call that? It's a phase delay going east to west
16:00
Speaker 1: in a phase advance going west to east right. And
16:02
Speaker 1: it's kind of like you can look at it like
16:04
Speaker 1: if you're if your clock, if you're looking at a
16:07
Speaker 1: clock and bedtime is a set time. In phase delay,
16:10
Speaker 1: you're just taking that hour hand and moving it back,
16:13
Speaker 1: so you're just putting off your bedtime a little longer. Yeah.
16:15
Speaker 1: With phase advance, you're moving that hour hand closer suddenly
16:19
Speaker 1: to your bedtime, even though your body is not ready
16:21
Speaker 1: to sleep. It's bedtime now. Wow. Wow. Well, it's just
16:27
Speaker 1: interesting that the body under it, you know, I mean,
16:29
Speaker 1: it makes sense. I guess what I find interesting is
16:31
Speaker 1: that we've figured out a way to technologically and artificially
16:34
Speaker 1: subject the body to like this kind of shock, and
16:38
Speaker 1: that it responds the way that it does. Yeah, you
16:40
Speaker 1: know that. It's it starts like overproducing this hormone or
16:43
Speaker 1: under producing that hormone and you go crazy. Well yeah,
16:46
Speaker 1: and since you mentioned it, that's one of the things
16:48
Speaker 1: that happened. It really it literally disrupts biological functions, releases
16:53
Speaker 1: stress hormones, drives up your blood pressure, sends inflammation stimulating
16:57
Speaker 1: chemical markers through your arteries. It's gonna mess up your appetite,
17:02
Speaker 1: like you said, because you're used to eating at regular times,
17:06
Speaker 1: and that's why you were eating crystal because it was
17:08
Speaker 1: that was probably a dinner time in Japan, I guess. Yeah.
17:11
Speaker 1: But haven't you ever noticed, like when you get up early,
17:13
Speaker 1: like say you have an early flight or something like,
17:15
Speaker 1: you can get up at a normal time, say you
17:17
Speaker 1: normally get up at eight, Yeah, you're maybe you're a
17:20
Speaker 1: little hungry or whatever, but you could skip breakfast. It's
17:22
Speaker 1: not a big deal. But if you're up and like
17:24
Speaker 1: moving around and at six or something like that, Yeah,
17:27
Speaker 1: for some reason, you're just starving. Like hasn't that ever
17:30
Speaker 1: happened to you? Yeah, I'm usually not super hungry in
17:32
Speaker 1: the morning, regardless of what time I wake up. If
17:35
Speaker 1: I'm up really early, I am ravenous for some reason.
17:38
Speaker 1: And I'll also find and I've always wonder what this was,
17:41
Speaker 1: that I'm not as hungry if I don't eat anything,
17:43
Speaker 1: but if I have like the banana, then it just
17:46
Speaker 1: makes me super hungry, right, Yeah, yeah, Or have you
17:48
Speaker 1: noticed if you have like red meat the night before
17:52
Speaker 1: whenever you get up the next day. You're just ravenous too. Really, yeah,
17:56
Speaker 1: that happens to me. Interesting. I don't need a lot
17:58
Speaker 1: of red meat anymore, but I'll oh you don't, no,
18:00
Speaker 1: I mean just because Emily doesn't. So, but yeah, I'll
18:03
Speaker 1: still have my steak every now and then. What are
18:04
Speaker 1: you eating these days? I mean, same thing I've always
18:07
Speaker 1: been eaten since I've been with Emily, which is a
18:09
Speaker 1: lot of chicken and turkey and fish. What kind of fish? Uh?
18:13
Speaker 1: It depends. I'll make like tilapia tacos or grilled salmon
18:16
Speaker 1: or nice like uh, what's the more flaky? Like not
18:21
Speaker 1: my heat, but I'll eat my he to the flounder. Yeah. Yeah,
18:26
Speaker 1: I'll just go to the the farmer's market and what looks
18:27
Speaker 1: what looks good and fresh? You know they just took
18:29
Speaker 1: mackerel off the Safe to Eat or or Fine to
18:33
Speaker 1: Eat environmentally list? Oh really, yeah, I didn't know it
18:36
Speaker 1: was on that. Yeah. Tuna, of course, love tuna, oh man,
18:39
Speaker 1: But you shouldn't eat a ton of tuna either. I
18:41
Speaker 1: think the mercury. Oh is that right? Yeah, I eat
18:43
Speaker 1: a lot of raw tuna. Yeah that they say that,
18:46
Speaker 1: you know. Jeremy Piven supposedly had some sort of mercury
18:50
Speaker 1: poisoning for eating too much sushi, which is why he knew. Yeah,
18:53
Speaker 1: he had to bag out of some movie or show
18:55
Speaker 1: because of it. But then I think later on they said, no,
18:58
Speaker 1: I think he was using as an excuse and it
19:00
Speaker 1: wasn't verified that he had mercury poisoning. That's a lot
19:03
Speaker 1: like the twinkie defense. It meant yet Jeremy Piven had
19:06
Speaker 1: the tuna defense. But that's why they did say, if
19:09
Speaker 1: you're pregnant, you shouldn't need a lot of things. Oh yeah, sushi, Yeah, yeah,
19:11
Speaker 1: for sure. Man, that was a sidetrack. Yeah, I think
19:36
Speaker 1: I'm hungry, is what the deal? All right? So why
19:41
Speaker 1: is it so difficult to overcome Josh? Well, like we said, um,
19:44
Speaker 1: your body's your buddy's circadian rhythm is not exactly twenty
19:49
Speaker 1: four hours, twenty four point six five hours, and so
19:53
Speaker 1: every day you're ready for sleep a little later and
19:56
Speaker 1: a little later and a little later. And that's why
19:59
Speaker 1: Ellie Patrick Kiger thinks you are. It's easier to adjust
20:04
Speaker 1: going from east to west because that means you're gonna
20:09
Speaker 1: have to stay up later to hit your normal bedtime. Anyway,
20:11
Speaker 1: and since we're already kind of doing that. It's not
20:13
Speaker 1: that big of a deal. And it's not just him.
20:15
Speaker 1: I think that's proven. Like NASA says the same thing, well,
20:19
Speaker 1: NASA and Patrick Kiger. Another reason is is not just
20:23
Speaker 1: light body temperature we said fluctuates. It's minimum temperature. Oh
20:29
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I thought it was maximum three hours before
20:32
Speaker 1: you get up. It's minimum temperature. Yeah, all right. I
20:35
Speaker 1: thought you like got really hot, like right before you
20:38
Speaker 1: woke up. You might, but Team in is typically three
20:43
Speaker 1: hours before you normally awake, okay. And they found that
20:47
Speaker 1: if you're if you have to wake up like during
20:50
Speaker 1: Team in, what your body is normally used to being
20:53
Speaker 1: at Team in, right, that's when your jet legs the
20:56
Speaker 1: absolute worst. And I think it's because that's a key
21:00
Speaker 1: that your body, your whole body has, is like Okay,
21:03
Speaker 1: we're still in deep sleep and we're going to be
21:05
Speaker 1: in a while, and then all of a sudden it's like,
21:06
Speaker 1: oh I have to wake up and go to this meeting.
21:08
Speaker 1: The body's not it's it's whacked out of its normal
21:11
Speaker 1: process of waking. I wonder if that sometimes if I
21:13
Speaker 1: get up super early, I have a harder time warming
21:15
Speaker 1: up through the day. I wonder if that has it
21:17
Speaker 1: makes a difference. I would bet it does. Like if
21:20
Speaker 1: you're used to waking up at a certain body temperature, Yeah,
21:23
Speaker 1: you know it takes care that no matter what, every
21:25
Speaker 1: single time, no matter why you're cold or how cold
21:28
Speaker 1: you are, go spend fifteen minutes in a sauna, yeah,
21:32
Speaker 1: and you will be right as rain. Yeah, it's just
21:34
Speaker 1: a miracle wood box. Yeah. I do that with the
21:37
Speaker 1: hot shower with the steam. Sometimes it doesn't take with
21:39
Speaker 1: me really Yeah. Sometimes like I'll still get out of
21:43
Speaker 1: the shower and like I'm chilled to the core still.
21:46
Speaker 1: How you sit in there, Like I will stay in
21:48
Speaker 1: there for a while and like really try to heat up,
21:50
Speaker 1: and like most of the time, like it will get
21:52
Speaker 1: my temperature like up. Yeah. Some with a sauna, it's
21:55
Speaker 1: like resetting it back to your normal setting every time
21:59
Speaker 1: you're kind of cold. Though for a man, like you're
22:03
Speaker 1: often chili when I'm not. And I know I'm super hot.
22:07
Speaker 1: You are very hot, but I think you're also a
22:09
Speaker 1: little cold. Put it's put us together and we make
22:12
Speaker 1: a very well adjusted exactly human body temperature wise, very middle. Um.
22:17
Speaker 1: So ask anyone what their remedy is for jet lag
22:21
Speaker 1: and you'll get ten different answers. Ask tender for people,
22:24
Speaker 1: you get ten different answers. That's what you say. Um,
22:28
Speaker 1: ask Bruce Willis what is he going to say? Make
22:30
Speaker 1: fist fits toes? Make fist with your toes. It's always
22:34
Speaker 1: been one of my favorite things, and I've tried it
22:36
Speaker 1: and it's silly. Of course it doesn't work, but I
22:38
Speaker 1: just do it now because it wasn't die Hard. Yeah,
22:40
Speaker 1: Argyle told him to do that. No, no no, no, it
22:43
Speaker 1: was a guy on the plane. I thought it was
22:45
Speaker 1: Argyle the driver. It was. It was on the plane
22:48
Speaker 1: as ever flying in and of course in die Hard,
22:50
Speaker 1: it was just to set up to get him without
22:52
Speaker 1: shoes and socks on. Yeah, because I played a part
22:54
Speaker 1: in the movie. That's a good movie. She's Day Finster. Yeah. Um.
22:59
Speaker 1: But like I said, some people use herbal remedies. Some
23:02
Speaker 1: people take melatonin, which is not FDA proof. But you
23:06
Speaker 1: can take melatonin and uthotic melotonin. We should say it
23:08
Speaker 1: saysn't this article it tells you how much it taken
23:11
Speaker 1: win and we'll tell you too, but we should also
23:13
Speaker 1: add a disclaimer. Melatonin has interactions with drugs like diabetes drugs,
23:18
Speaker 1: blood thinners, birth control pills. You may want to check
23:23
Speaker 1: out what melatonin might do with your medication before you
23:26
Speaker 1: take it. You definitely should. Yeah, some people just say,
23:30
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm gonna take a red eye and
23:32
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take some valume and drink some Scotch and
23:35
Speaker 1: just knock myself out for the whole flight and that'll
23:37
Speaker 1: do the trick. Yeah, that works if you want to die, Yeah,
23:42
Speaker 1: explain well, there was a thirty six year old woman
23:44
Speaker 1: who recently died of a stroke because and she was
23:48
Speaker 1: otherwise healthy apparently, Yeah, but she passed out on a
23:52
Speaker 1: seven hour flight or went to sleep or whatever. But
23:54
Speaker 1: she slept for seven hours on a flight and developed thrombosis,
23:58
Speaker 1: which is a blood clot and apparently it went from
24:01
Speaker 1: probably her leg to her brain. Yeah. And again when
24:05
Speaker 1: we went to Japan, I think it was Japan Airlines,
24:08
Speaker 1: they make you get up. Yeah, they're like, okay, it's
24:12
Speaker 1: like it's big, it's play stretching time. Yeah, and they
24:15
Speaker 1: show you how to do it, like sitting down at
24:17
Speaker 1: your seat, but they're also like, why don't you get
24:19
Speaker 1: up to walk around? So wow, Yeah, you kind of
24:21
Speaker 1: have to because you can develop a fatal blood clot
24:24
Speaker 1: just from sitting on a plane because of the change
24:26
Speaker 1: in pressure and just sitting for that long. Yeah, you're
24:28
Speaker 1: not supposed to sleep in a sitting position, right. The
24:31
Speaker 1: body is meant to be horizontal and prone, right, But
24:34
Speaker 1: that's just for rich people on flack. Oh up in
24:37
Speaker 1: first class now where they have the sleepers, Yeah, that's
24:40
Speaker 1: they're so obnoxious. They should put first class in the
24:43
Speaker 1: back so you don't have to walk through that scene.
24:46
Speaker 1: I know. The funniest is when they have like the
24:49
Speaker 1: gauzy curtains separating first class coach and you can it's like,
24:54
Speaker 1: I see that you're having a salad. I can see
24:56
Speaker 1: your salad. That hotel looks nice. Give me some of
24:59
Speaker 1: that salad. So there are all kinds of home remedies
25:03
Speaker 1: in Little Wives tales of what you can do, right,
25:06
Speaker 1: But if you're an expert, like if you're a NASA
25:09
Speaker 1: or if you are Chicago's Rush University Medical Center, you
25:14
Speaker 1: have some real advice like gradually adjusting your circadian rhythm
25:20
Speaker 1: actually using a lightbox, which is a lot of effort,
25:24
Speaker 1: but I bet it works. It does. It also works
25:27
Speaker 1: for seasonal effective disorder. Sure, So there's actually I came
25:33
Speaker 1: across the paper and all tweeted out and posted on
25:35
Speaker 1: Facebook or something, blog about it. We'll do something with it.
25:38
Speaker 1: But because I couldn't get I couldn't get it enough
25:42
Speaker 1: in time to really speak about it. But there's there's
25:45
Speaker 1: this guy who came up with a paper that's basically
25:47
Speaker 1: like a computational method for offsetting jet leg and figuring
25:54
Speaker 1: out how to adjust your schedule accordingly. Is it like
25:56
Speaker 1: this in the article? Yeah, that's the impression that I have,
25:59
Speaker 1: but it's like really detailed, but basically Chicago's Russia University
26:04
Speaker 1: Medical Center researchers say, what you want to do is,
26:07
Speaker 1: if you're going from west to east, which is the
26:09
Speaker 1: devil one right phase advance, you want to start going
26:13
Speaker 1: to bed an hour earlier every day. Yeah, and like
26:20
Speaker 1: several days, maybe like five days before your trip, you
26:22
Speaker 1: want to start going to bed an hour earlier, and
26:24
Speaker 1: not just an hour earlier across the board, but earlier
26:26
Speaker 1: and earlier and earlier. To wear right before your trip,
26:28
Speaker 1: you're going to bed about five hours earlier. And if
26:32
Speaker 1: you're going to take melatonin and you've done all your research,
26:35
Speaker 1: you want to take half a half a milligram of
26:39
Speaker 1: melatonin four and a half hours before bedtime. Yeah, and
26:42
Speaker 1: then so you want to progressively push that time earlier
26:46
Speaker 1: and earlier in the day as you're going to bed
26:47
Speaker 1: earlier and earlier at night. And then when you wake up,
26:51
Speaker 1: blast yourself with the lightbox. Yeah. Oh well east to west.
26:57
Speaker 1: That was west to east. Okay, yeah, east to west.
26:59
Speaker 1: You want to not blast yourself with light. You want
27:02
Speaker 1: to like wear sunglasses in the morning and avoid light
27:05
Speaker 1: in the morning. But they say, use a light box
27:08
Speaker 1: at your normal bedtime and stay up later, right, which
27:12
Speaker 1: makes sense. It sounds pretty torture, it does. There's a
27:15
Speaker 1: New York Times article too, called a Battle Plan for
27:18
Speaker 1: jet lag, and they've done a study with Major League
27:24
Speaker 1: Baseball actually because they travel a lot. And they said
27:27
Speaker 1: that over two year span, teams that went eastward gave
27:31
Speaker 1: up an average of one extra run per game. Huh.
27:33
Speaker 1: That interesting. Yeah, But they say, which is the old
27:38
Speaker 1: I guess it's not a wives tale if NASA is
27:39
Speaker 1: confirming it. They say it takes about one day per
27:42
Speaker 1: light per time zone to get back into that rhythm
27:46
Speaker 1: in general, and they say the same thing, you got
27:49
Speaker 1: to re to regulate your exposure to light. So when
27:54
Speaker 1: you get in that hotel room, if you're traveling east,
27:56
Speaker 1: you got to expose yourself to light early an advance
27:59
Speaker 1: at clock. If you're traveling west, expose yourself to light
28:03
Speaker 1: at dusk and in the early part of the evening
28:05
Speaker 1: and delay that clock. And they'd say, like, you know,
28:08
Speaker 1: close the curtains, put a towel over your clock radio,
28:13
Speaker 1: like get it as dark as possible. Don't look at
28:15
Speaker 1: any computer screens and laptops. They say you shouldn't eat
28:19
Speaker 1: like a big meal or a spicy food like the
28:22
Speaker 1: first day you get there. Don't like dive right into
28:24
Speaker 1: that vacation because that can mess you up as well.
28:27
Speaker 1: Gastro intestinaly speaking and what else. Well, the CDC says
28:34
Speaker 1: they don't have any suggestions other than like eat a
28:37
Speaker 1: balanced diet and make sure you get some exercise jerks.
28:41
Speaker 1: And it's like, of course you're gonna say that, CDC.
28:44
Speaker 1: Do you have any other suggestions, and they say, yes,
28:47
Speaker 1: wear loose clothing on the flight, avoid alcohol and caffeine well.
28:53
Speaker 1: And afterward they say that first day on vacation, you
28:55
Speaker 1: shouldn't be hit in the alcohol right either, Yeah, because
28:57
Speaker 1: that'll just mess up your sleep period. Yeah, and then
29:01
Speaker 1: have you heard of this thing called the Valki no
29:04
Speaker 1: vl k team of scientists in Finland invented this thing,
29:09
Speaker 1: and it because their belief is that the brain is
29:11
Speaker 1: it's all about photosensitivity, and so they actually it's sort
29:15
Speaker 1: of like an iPod, but instead of the ear plugs,
29:18
Speaker 1: it emits light through your ear canal directly to the brain,
29:22
Speaker 1: and they said it works. They tested three hundred and
29:24
Speaker 1: fifty subjects over four years and found that there is
29:28
Speaker 1: definitely brain activity when the little Valki is on, and
29:32
Speaker 1: that nine out of ten subjects felt reduction and stress,
29:36
Speaker 1: seasonal depression and anxiety. And so they're using it for
29:39
Speaker 1: winter blues and PMS and jetlag and migraines, all sorts
29:45
Speaker 1: of stuff. Fantastic. Yeah, I don't know how much of
29:47
Speaker 1: it is, Zoe. I'm curious if it is the price
29:50
Speaker 1: of an iPod or just the size of an iPod.
29:53
Speaker 1: That's a good question. Yeah, I'd try it though I
29:55
Speaker 1: get pretty bad jetlag. That's like when we go to
29:57
Speaker 1: do events now, I try to fly out a day
29:59
Speaker 1: or really just to sort of adjust. Yeah, but um,
30:02
Speaker 1: I can do east coast, West coast. It doesn't hit
30:05
Speaker 1: me that bad. Um, Yeah, it's more like international that
30:09
Speaker 1: gets me. Yeah. Yeah, I haven't had it very bad.
30:13
Speaker 1: Like when we went to the TCA's it didn't. I
30:15
Speaker 1: didn't seem out of sorts there or back. I get
30:18
Speaker 1: a little lot of sorts, do you. Yeah, but not
30:19
Speaker 1: super bad. I'm glad, Chuck, Yeah, you got anything else?
30:46
Speaker 1: I got nothing else? Okay, that was jet lag everybody. Yeah,
30:50
Speaker 1: and uh, that kind of goes in with our sleeping sweep.
30:53
Speaker 1: We've done a bunch of those, like how much sleep
30:55
Speaker 1: do you really need? Um? What was the one about
30:58
Speaker 1: the sleep aid? Remember the sleep Baby where like you
31:02
Speaker 1: could stay up for forty eight hours without any sleep? Yeah?
31:05
Speaker 1: I don't remember the title of that one. Who wants
31:07
Speaker 1: to do that? I love my sleep? That was a
31:09
Speaker 1: good episode though. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of people wish
31:13
Speaker 1: that you didn't have to sleep. I would imagine not me.
31:16
Speaker 1: I'm with you. I like to sleep too. If you
31:18
Speaker 1: want to hear any of those, you can go to
31:20
Speaker 1: our website Stuff you Should Know dot com and click
31:23
Speaker 1: on the podcast page and to start searching, go to town.
31:25
Speaker 1: You're gonna find some cool stuff. And if you want
31:27
Speaker 1: to read this article, how jetlag works. Go to HowStuffWorks
31:30
Speaker 1: dot com and in the searchbar type jet leg and
31:33
Speaker 1: it will bring up the spot by an article. And
31:36
Speaker 1: I said, searchbar, so it's time for listening to me, Josh.
31:41
Speaker 1: I called this a very sweet email from Wendy, and
31:43
Speaker 1: I will be reading some of it and summarizing some
31:46
Speaker 1: of it because it's super long. She starts out, congratulations
31:49
Speaker 1: on the launch of your TV show. Thank you. I've
31:52
Speaker 1: been reading online chatter and I hope it's going comfortably
31:55
Speaker 1: for you behind the scenes, because you hear these reactions.
31:57
Speaker 1: It's a bummer when those weird people on the block
32:00
Speaker 1: who mow the lawn naked or pride themselves on not
32:02
Speaker 1: being tricked into attending college. I think that they are
32:05
Speaker 1: qualified critics. Hopefully you're all too experienced by now to
32:08
Speaker 1: do more than laugh at the losers and just keep
32:11
Speaker 1: doing what you enjoy. So I told her that was
32:14
Speaker 1: very nice, and it came in a good time because
32:17
Speaker 1: people could be mean. Man, people have been kind of mean,
32:19
Speaker 1: but hey, we have pretty thick skin. We've been doing
32:21
Speaker 1: this for years. We got the armor on. So anyway,
32:24
Speaker 1: that was very nice Wendy, and then she just wants
32:26
Speaker 1: she's been meaning to write in for several years to
32:29
Speaker 1: thank us. She started listening after she moved from Seattle
32:32
Speaker 1: to Burbank in two thousand and eight, and it was
32:36
Speaker 1: a pretty depressing time for her. She said, stay at
32:39
Speaker 1: home mom, and we really got her through that time.
32:42
Speaker 1: A year later, she moved to Utah. She kept downloading
32:45
Speaker 1: because Chuck was on board. It's nice, yeah, And it
32:49
Speaker 1: was like having my brothers around for an hour or
32:51
Speaker 1: so every day. It was really nice. She said. It
32:53
Speaker 1: was clear by that point, even if we didn't know
32:55
Speaker 1: each other, that you guys would probably be friends of
32:57
Speaker 1: mine if we knew each other, and you would not
33:01
Speaker 1: only appreciate the wild cultural shift from Hollywood in Salt
33:03
Speaker 1: Lake City, but also be more fascinated than turned off
33:07
Speaker 1: by my strange family connections. And she didn't explain what
33:11
Speaker 1: that met. Very mysterious. Then she moved from Youthaw to
33:15
Speaker 1: Massachusetts and she was eight months pregnant and we really
33:17
Speaker 1: helped her through that, and so she was super appreciative
33:20
Speaker 1: of that. And then she says, this a long time ago,
33:23
Speaker 1: you had a many side conversation about what romance meant
33:26
Speaker 1: and seemed to conclude that it was guys who had
33:29
Speaker 1: a manly friend crush on another guy that they knew
33:33
Speaker 1: and they'd really enjoy hanging out with. I don't think
33:35
Speaker 1: we invented that. No, No, that's commonly what the romance
33:38
Speaker 1: is known as. I may be a woman, but I
33:40
Speaker 1: do have a major friend crush on you. Guys. You
33:42
Speaker 1: filled in for the awesome friends and family that I've
33:45
Speaker 1: missed intelligently shooting the breeze for the last while, almost
33:49
Speaker 1: five years now. That is really nice. Yeah, so she's
33:51
Speaker 1: moving around and we've we've helped her out as substituting
33:54
Speaker 1: for her. Smart friends, keep podcasting, take care of yourselves,
33:58
Speaker 1: you know that. In the zombiepo collipse, I definitely have
34:00
Speaker 1: your backs. By the way, my weapon of choice would
34:03
Speaker 1: be an iron age Scandinavian sacks in one hand, a
34:08
Speaker 1: long handled axe in the other, and a shotgun I
34:12
Speaker 1: could carry across my back. So, Wendy, you are well
34:16
Speaker 1: armed a lady, and you'll be right by our sides.
34:19
Speaker 1: Thanks for that, Wendy. Yeah, um, we're glad we could
34:23
Speaker 1: help you through the last five years. Can you believe
34:25
Speaker 1: it's been like five years? Pretty soon I saw a
34:28
Speaker 1: tweet from a listener that said that they were off
34:30
Speaker 1: to college and they started listening in eighth grade. Well,
34:33
Speaker 1: and Sarah are amazing eleven year old fan about fifteen.
34:37
Speaker 1: Oh man, that's nuts. And she she's gonna be driving soon.
34:40
Speaker 1: She is. I want to fix up with my nephew.
34:42
Speaker 1: It's too bad they don't live in the same state. Well, hey,
34:45
Speaker 1: we're living. If you want to tell us how we
34:51
Speaker 1: helped you out, or helped you through some rough times,
34:54
Speaker 1: or we're just there for you, you know, like the
34:57
Speaker 1: pals we are, we always want to hear that kind
34:59
Speaker 1: of thing, you can tweet to us at sy SKA podcasts.
35:03
Speaker 1: Oh how about this. You can also tell us any
35:06
Speaker 1: of your jet leg remedies. Yeah, I'd like to hear them. Um.
35:09
Speaker 1: You can tweet to us at sysk podcast You can
35:12
Speaker 1: join us on Facebook dot com. You can send us
35:15
Speaker 1: an email to Stuff Podcast at HowStuffWorks dot com. Stuff
35:22
Speaker 1: you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
35:25
Speaker 1: podcasts My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
35:29
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