Fasting May Fix Jet Lag 131
stoolpigeon writes "Reuters reports on a Harvard Medical School study on sleep patterns and how they relate to food. Researchers already knew that the sleep patterns of mice would change to match the opportunity to feed, but they did not know the mechanism that enabled the change. To find out, they looked for the part of the brain that was involved. They bred mice without a certain master gene that regulates the body's clock, and then targeted various parts of the brain with the gene, delivered in the shell of a virus. The results may, among other things, provide a new method for preparing to deal with jet lag: 'A period of fasting with no food at all for about 16 hours is enough to engage this [alternate body] clock,' the lead researcher said. The study appears in the journal Science."
I hate discovering stuff before the papers... (Score:1, Interesting)
To make it through the required all-nighters or any other binge of staying awake, you eat more food to provide more energy to your body.
Conversely, when you mess up your sleep schedule because of it, it's easy to just skip the meals that day so you goto sleep earlier because you have no energy.
So is the big discovery here that it works this way, or that it's precisely 16 hours and it affects part x of the brain?
Interesting (Score:2, Interesting)
Some people don't eat after 12 noon (Score:3, Interesting)
Sure, you're sitting all day and not expending much energy. But one thing you discover is how much better you sleep on an empty stomach.
Just in college? (Score:2, Interesting)
I mean, if you dont eat breakfast, then you start at lunch, then dinner then snacks... eventually you'll stop waking up around breakfast time (according to this article).
Irregular eating patterns also make you fat, I've heard - I wonder what the correlation between late risers and obesity is?
Old news (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Eat a regular meal (usually lunch or supper)
2. Fly and fast
3. Eat a meal at the next regular meal time. (Usually 10 to 12 hours later).
4. One day later in the new time zone (GMT+1), all is reset.
Worked like a charm and was based on research available at the time so I don't see what is so new about the advice.
Re:I've got a better idea. (Score:3, Interesting)
Think airline seats suck? Try webbing sling seats in a C141 (yes, I'm old) or other airlifter.
Eating first kept me from waking up due to hunger.
Most people are missing the main point here (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Is jetlag a /significant/ issue or just annoyin (Score:2, Interesting)
I've tried a lot of things to see how they work. Such as drinking a lot as soon as in flight service starts, and try to sleep 1 hour later. I also tried staying up the whole time, hoping that I could sleep well once I get to my destination. I also tried adjusting my watch to the destination time and sleep accordingly during the flight, I tried melatonin, I tried.. a hell of a lot of things, but none worked that well. (Actually, drinking a lot and then sleeping did the best, but still was far from perfect.) Fasting is a new one, I'll need to try it next. I always fly business class or first class, so I really can't blame the seats....
Re:Some people don't eat after 12 noon (Score:3, Interesting)
One man's meditation camp is another man's torture. I eat 4000-6000 calories per day, and cannot sleep while hungry. I'll typically have a nice large meal (a bunch of pasta, some veggies, fruit, some protein) around 2AM, and fall right asleep. If I don't eat, I can't sleep.
And no, I'm not overweight - my BMI (or whatever the insurance companies use) is so low that I've been turned down repeatedly for insurance for being underweight. Nothing like being 6'10" and 175 pounds.
Re:I've got a better idea. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I've got a better idea. (Score:3, Interesting)
People have become hyper-sensitive to price because airlines charge vastly different prices for the same service. You don't have to do much air travel before you have the experience of sitting next to a guy who paid half as much as you did.
Re:I've got a better idea. (Score:5, Interesting)
If there are any enterprising developers out there, there may be a market for this...
Melatonin? (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't know if this would work well with more dramatic time shifts, like Asia - North America, but melatonin in general has been a sanity saver for me. There are days where I take a four hour nap and fear that I'll never sleep at night. Pop a melatonin an hour before I want to go to bed, and I sleep a completely normal night's sleep.
No uncomfortable fasting required.
Re:I hate discovering stuff before the papers... (Score:2, Interesting)
Using these tricks (and others) I can usually be integrated into my new time zone within 48 hours. It's worked going to Europe and to Australia. Once, I had a rough time in Moscow but that was because it was winter and the (lack of) sun in the sky in the mornings and afternoons meant I couldn't get used to the daylight schedule as easy.
On the other hand... (Score:2, Interesting)