Ha ha, you need a vacation from your vacation. But in all seriousness, you don’t. You might just need to adjust your zeitgebers.
Jet lag is often associated with long-distance travel, but it can afflict all travelers, including people who pop off for a short getaway in the same time zone. When our circadian rhythms are not aligned with the zeitgebers, the environmental cues that tell our bodies to wake up, go to bed, eat and exercise, we can feel off — sluggish and cranky, tired when we should be alert and wakeful when we should be sleepy. (The pronunciation of the German word for “time-giver” is ZIGHT-gay-buhr.)
Sleep experts commonly refer to the mismatch of our biological clocks and schedules as social jet lag. For this reason, the vacation that was intended to be relaxing and rejuvenating could leave you depleted.
“They might be pretty consistent Monday through Friday, but on the weekends they go out, they sleep in, they have brunch late, they do all these things that totally confuse their clocks,” said Mollie Eastman, creator of Sleep is a Skill, an online resource for the sleep-challenged. “It’s like they got on a flight and are experiencing jet lag, but they didn’t go anywhere.”
To reach a higher plane of restfulness, your 24-hour biological cycle must work in harmony with the zeitgebers. Unlocking the secret to a restorative vacation could be as simple as stepping onto your hotel balcony in the morning or eating with the early-bird diners.
Don’t sleep in and soak up the early light
As creatures of the day, our most important zeitgeber is light.
Humans are diurnal, meaning we are most active during daytime hours. However, on vacation, you might be tempted to overrule nature and sleep in, shortening your amount of light exposure. While dozing through the hotel’s breakfast buffet might sound divine, your body may disagree.
“The tendency to get up earlier than feels good on workdays and to sleep in on nonwork days is very damaging to the circadian system,” said Melissa Knauert, an associate professor of medicine at Yale University who specializes in circadian and sleep disruption. “Waking up at the same time every day is critically important.”
You don’t need to bolt out of bed as if you had a 9 a.m. meeting, as there is some wiggle room. Knauert said you can get up an hour or two beyond your normal time without upending your clock too much.
Once awake, you don’t need to immediately seize the day. You can take it slow, Knauert said, but just try to incorporate some light into your morning routine.
“Right after that wake-up time, there’s a period of several hours when you are very sensitive to the cues,” Knauert said. “So getting bright light that has blue content in the several hours after waking is really important.”
Blue light, a high-energy light on the visible light spectrum, is emitted by the sun, electronic screens and LED bulbs. You can receive your dosage naturally, basking in the sunshine on your hotel balcony or the pool deck, or artificially, under lights that measure at least 250 lux, the level of illumination often found in bathrooms and kitchens.
If you are visiting an eastward destination with a time change of four hours or more, Knauert recommends delaying or reducing your light exposure during morning hours. Hiding out in a dark closet isn’t necessary. You could take a morning tour of a dimly lit attraction, such as a windowless museum, or tuck into a far-back booth in a coffee shop. If you go outside, wear a hat and sunglasses. Traveling westward is typically easier on the body; just avoid blue light (more on that below) if you wake up at an odd hour.
This light exposure rule also applies to travel days. On flights, keep the window shade up during your normal waking hours. If your seatmate closes it, ask them to please to open it, to keep your circadian rhythms on beat.
Zeitgeber fix: Stick to the same morning wake-up time and get a zap of light at the start of the day. Windows up on daytime flights.
Block out blue light
It’s not a school night, but act like it is.
For domestic travel, sleep experts recommend adhering to your usual bedtime hour. Similar to waking up, you can adjust it by an hour or two, but be careful not to totally shake up your norm.
To prepare your body for sleep, avoid blue light — laptop screens, LED hotel lights — two to three hours before your desired bedtime. Eastman said to switch to ambient lighting, such as candles, Himalayan salt lamps or red bulbs, and put your electronics in night mode. If certain light is unavoidable, slip on a pair of orange or red blue-light-blocker glasses. Some models are even built for sleep.
“You don’t want to get a big dose of early morning [blue] light that will push your body in the wrong direction so you can’t go to sleep,” Knauert said.
Zeitgeber fix: Switch off all blue lights a few hours before calling it a night, and don’t stray too far from your usual snooze time.
Follow the same mealtimes as a hunter-gatherer
Your vacation mealtimes should stay relatively close to your at-home dining routine — unless you’re on the other side of an ocean. If you are in a different time zone, dine at the hour your body is calibrated to — so, a Bostonian who normally orders breakfast at 9 a.m. should switch to 8 a.m. eggs and coffee in Chicago.
The same rule applies for dinner. Dine on the earlier or later side to accommodate any small time differences.
Eastman suggests circadian rhythm intermittent fasting, “a fancy term for aligning when you’re eating with the rhythms of nature.” Practitioners will consume food during daylight hours and maintain a relatively consistent eating window, which she said can be especially helpful for travelers crossing multiple time zones.
“You can’t go hunting and gathering in pitch black, and there were no pantries, right?” Eastman said. “The body has evolved to have that sort of digestive break period, and that impacts the quality of your sleep.”
For zeitgebers, when you eat is more important than what you consume. For general wellness, however, Knauert suggests complex carbohydrates, lean proteins and low-fat foods.
Zeitgeber fix: Keep the same meal times, even when you are up earlier or later than usual. For overseas travel, try 12-hour fasting.
Exercise by day and lower the thermostat at night
Physical exercise can help regulate your internal clock, but don’t amp up the adrenaline too late at night.
“For your overall health, it’s better to exercise at a bad time than not at all,” Knauert said. “But if you squeeze it in right before bed, will that help your circadian system? No, that’s probably not the best thing to do.”
Eastman said to keep a buffer of at least four hours between a high-intensity workout and bedtime. Travelers have more leeway with light yoga and stretching exercises, which can help calm your nervous system and relax your mood.
If you go out dancing or engage in another high-energy activity, give yourself at least 90 minutes to wind down before trying to fall asleep. Eastman recommends activating your personal zeitgeber cues, such as journaling, sipping a hot cup of tea or taking a warm bath or shower. She also suggests lowering the thermostat, which will signal to your body that it is entering the last turn of its 24-hour cycle.
The National Sleep Foundation said the ideal sleep temperature is between 60 and 67 degrees. Though it might seem counterintuitive, Eastman said taking a warm bath or shower up to two hours before you go to bed can help the body cool off, ushering in sound sleep.
“We’re not trying to make people shiver and uncomfortably cold,” Eastman said. “We are trying to get a rich, deep sleep from a much cooler body state.”
Zeitgeber fix: Plan your sweat sessions for daytime. In the evening, set the mood for sleeping and turn down the thermostat to chill.
The post Tired on your vacation? You might need to adjust your zeitgebers. appeared first on Washington Post.
