Fifteen years as a professional pilot, eight of them with FedEx, has made me come to terms with what is Jet Lag and what it is not. While at FedEx, I would often find myself flying nights one day and flying in the daytime the next. Add into the equation 10-hour international flights where the time zones fly by, and it is easy to see why NASA came to FedEx to study sleep disorders. Here is what we know and what we think we know about what people refer to as Jet Lag.

First, Jet Lag is a broad, overall description of fatigue. Fatigue associated with air travel. Jet Lag is in fact two issues. First and foremost, Jet Lag is dehydration. Pressurized aircraft are pressurized by taking hot bleed air off the high-pressure stage of a turbine engine. This air is so hot that it is often times measured in Calvin. It has been described as being in the neighborhood of 585 degree Fahrenheit and that assures the fact that it holds no moisture. It is cooled and introduced into the cabin, sans moisture.

Our bodies are over 95% water. During a flight moisture is taken from our bodies with the efficiency of a convection oven. Most of us associate thirst with the drying out of glands in our throat. By the time you feel thirsty in an airplane, it is already to late, you are already dehydrated and simple consumption of fluids will not be able to reverse the affects of dehydration.

As airline pilots, we drink water all the time while in the air regardless of how we feel. Most pilots do not, in fact, drink enough water. I came to the conclusion that one would have to drink 32 ounces an hour just to keep up with amount of water leaving your body. Here is how I came to the figure of 32 ounces an hour.

I was flying on a regular basis from Memphis, Tennessee to Campinas, Brazil non-stop. Ten hours down, ten hours back once a week. I liked the schedule where by it was max pay and minimum time away from home. One day I got a soar throat and was going to have to fly that night down to Brazil. Ten hour is an enclosed, moisture free, cockpit would have been shear hell. If I had dropped the trip I would have to make it back up with trips in "Open Time". Open Time is basically the trash can where the trips are so bad that fellow pilots would ditch them and some poor reserve pilot would get assigned to them at the last minute.

Faced with that I decided to take the flight. Normally I would drink about 16 ounces an hour and when we got down to Brazil would feel tired. With this soar throat, I was forced to double my rate of water consumption and to my amazement, felt perfectly fine 10 hours later. That night I went out to dinner while the other two crewmembers went to sleep. Water lots of it.

When traveling as a passenger on long international flights, people want to pass the time by sleeping. Problem with sleeping is that you cannot consume enough water to stave off dehydration while asleep. I doubt an inter venous tube would even be of any use! Because the cabin crew shut down in-flight service so as to enable those wanting to sleep can, I bring 3 liters of bottled water and drink every bit of it.

The second factor in Jet Lag is the disruption in circadian rhythms. Our bodies get used to the repetitious cycle of wake/work/rest. The sun plays a huge role in this cycle. When it gets light outside, we get up. When the sun goes down, so do we. But what happens to astronauts who circle the earth and experience over 8 sunrises and sunsets a day? I do not know. The NASA sleep study they did on FedEx pilots is still to this day, classified!

While flying into the sun or with the sun, pilots have learned to basically stay on their regular schedule they would be on back home. This makes reentry into the home front less of an adjustment. We pilots have gotten some weird looks at crewmember gatherings in Japanese hotel lobbies from 6pm to 6am local time in Japan. When the sun starts to come up we would go to our rooms and seal out the sun light. I regularly carried duct tape just for this task. By doing this we were keeping our bodies from seeing the sunlight and thus hasten the sleep cycle we would have were we at home.

Sleeping pills help some people. Consult your family doctor as to what may or may not be a good idea. Weaker sleeping pills are out on the market and their benefits are more in tune with adjusting sleep patterns.
jet lag flying fatigue