Selects: How Jet Lag Works

It was only since 1958 that the Jet Age began, and jet lag became a real condition. Also known as desynchronosis, jet lag can lead to all manner of ailments, from sleeplessness to irritability to diabetes and cancer. In this classic episode, learn about how the body's natural clock runs normally and what happens when it gets out of whack when we cross time zones quickly.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey everybody, Good morning to you. If it's Saturday morning,
good afternoon, if it's Saturday afternoon, good evening, or good night.
If it's Saturday evening or night. And if it's not Saturday,
then what are you even doing here? This is our
Selects episode selection for the week. I am your co
host Charles W Chuck Bryant, and I went with How
jet Lag Works is from February twelfth, twenty thirteen. And

(00:25):
jet lag is just a bit of a drag for
anyone that travels over long distances. We've all probably felt
it at one point or another, and this is a
great explainer on exactly how it works and how you
can best combat it. So enjoy, happy flying. Welcome to

(00:47):
Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, and
welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as
always as Charles. To you, Chuck Bryant, who just flew
in to be here. Yeah, I was, I was on
the concord. I was just in Paris. Dude, dude, I've

(01:08):
seen a concord. Oh yeah yeah. The Air and Space
Museum m not the one in downtown DC, yeah, but
the one out by Dullest Airport. At the new museum.
Oh my god, it's awesome. I wanted on board so bad.
But it's like you're standing right next to and underneath
a concord. It's cool. They also have like Discovery Space

(01:30):
Shuttle Discovery, You're standing right next to that. It's a
really neat museum. Why did they end up grounding the concord?
Was it not cost efficient? It was? It wasn't and
like any time there was any kind of problem, like
everyone died really oh my god. Yeah. But also the
US outlaw and supersonic air travel, so like you couldn't

(01:51):
fly across the interior of the continent, okay, um, which
cut out like a lot of revenue source. Yeah. So
basically it was just um and I don't think Air
France or British Airways ever even broke even in all
those years on Concord flights. Yeah. But and then in
two thousand and three there was that most recent crash,

(02:12):
that last crash, and after that that was it for
the Concord. Yeah. I think, Um, if I'm not mistaken,
my friend Justin who you know, his mom when they
had like some final flights of the Concord, flight of
the Concord Yeah, she went on one of those. Yeah,
as like just to do it. I think I'd be
wrong with that, but I seem to remember that from
my past. You could go from London to New York

(02:35):
in five hours? What is usually like eight? Yeah, eight
or nine or something. Yeah. And do you remember when
Phil Collins played Band Aid, he played a show in London,
they got on the concord flute to New York and
then played a show there. Yeah, like in the same night. Yeah,
that was pretty cool. That was it live a Yeah,
but you know what's the difference. The one thing I

(02:55):
knew was that it wasn't far made Phil Collins. Oh
did he play Farmade? I don't think so. That was
more Willie Willie and Mellencamp and Neil Young and all
those cats. Yeah. So, um, Phil Collins flying back and
forth between London and New York to deliver his concert.
So thank god that happened. I love Phil Collins, I

(03:16):
think though, really, Oh yeah, dude, that wouldn't have been
possible had it not been for something that we'd like
to call the jet age. Yes. Starting around the late fifties,
the jet became the preferred motive travel, which, interestingly a
ticket on a jet was actually less than a ticket

(03:36):
on like a propeller piston engine plane. Oh, relate first, Yeah, interesting,
isn't that interesting? Yeah, But in the late fifties you
had McDonnell, Douglas and Boeing really kind of duking it
out to create the jet to get people very quickly
from one part of the country to another. Yeah, and
it opened up commercial air travel and all of a sudden,

(03:59):
you didn't have to be the richest person in the
world to get from you know, New York to la
you know, without having to drive or taking forever to
get there a train, prop plane, whatever. Yeah, and admit
a jet lag essentially. Well, there you go, Thanks for
finishing my intro for me. Well, we've only been around,

(04:20):
we've been leaping time zones for less than a hundred years,
so there are some beliefs that eventually we may evolve
out of jet lag. Yeah, but for now, we haven't
been doing it long enough. Now, it's been like fifty
sixty years. Yeah, our bodies to even know what the
heck is going on, right, And that's pretty much what
jet lag is. Our body does not know what's going on. Yeah,

(04:42):
there's another term for jet lag. It's called desynchronosis. That's
a great word for it. Yeah, your body has a
biological clock, and when you travel from one time zone
to another in fairly short order, your body gets out
of sync with its environment, and all of a sudden,
all cues that uses to regulate itself and all sorts

(05:04):
of things that your body does it gets out of sink.
And what happens when you get out of sink, Well,
there's a lot of stuff that happens, Chuck, I'm glad
you asked that. You can have cognitive problems, problems thinking
and problem solving and just general mental problems short term
of course and temporary, but still you're not thinking quite right.

(05:27):
Health problems. There is a study in two thousand and
six from the University of Virginia that found out that
lab rats who were given jet lag, who were exposed
to simulated jet lag, yeah, which is basically I think
a DC to Paris flight once a week for I

(05:48):
guess most of their lives. Probably older ones died much
more quickly than younger ones. Yes, so if you're old,
which I've noticed that my jet lag has gotten worse
as i've aged. Yeah, for sure, I didn't used to
get jetlagged at all. Yeah, I didn't know what the
big problem was, and now it's like one of the
worst things that can ever happen to you. Yeah. Well yeah, fatigue, alertness, irritability, disorientation, depression,

(06:14):
gas rontestinal illnesses. Yeah, it can really mess you up.
That comes from flying too. Get air gas. It just
the change in pressure like creates really gas. It's not
like methane or anything. It's just like gas bubble in
your guts. So you've like fart a lot on planes
or after you got you can as a result. Sure,

(06:35):
and you know what you should do. People. By the way,
I'm gonna insert some flying etiquette here in there. Are
you gonna get up and go to the bathroom and fart?
Don't fart in your seat? Why are you looking at me? Well,
because you're a cross room me. Okay, now, I just
you know me and flying Now it's just so annoying
to me because it's like a eighteenth century, you know,

(06:56):
bus station these days when you were flying he laughing.
Everybody's wearing like pajamas and like teenage girls with their boots.
Oh my gosh, it's stressed appropriately. You don't even have
to dress up. But it's like, like, I don't want
to see what you look like in your living room,
you know. I know, Well, you take your shoes off,

(07:18):
which is something I'm There's nothing wrong with that because
my feet do not smell. If my feet smelled in
my shoes smelled, I wouldn't take them off. I'm very,
very aware of that kind of thing. But it's funny
that you bring that up because the other night I
watched Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, which is that movie really
holds up, and John Candy takes his shoes off and

(07:40):
it takes the socks off, and I thought, well, I
don't take my socks off, right, But I thought of
you because I know that you think that's a terrible
thing to do. Yeah, I just think he should remain
fully clothed when you're out in public like that. I'm
cool with taking the shoes off, as long as the
socks stay on and your feet don't stay But okay,
so you're on a plane, You're you've got all these

(08:00):
symptoms awaiting you, and if you are part of the
ninety four percent of Americans, you are going to get
jet lag. Yeah, I wonder what's going on with a
six percent. They're probably like younger people who don't know
what they're talking about. You think, yes, interesting because it's biological.
I just I bet you there's something to that six percent. Besides,

(08:22):
you're five years old, you think. I doubt if they
interviewed a lot of five year olds about jet lack
for the study, well not five, but I mean, like,
I think I was American ager. I was like, what's
everyone's problem with jet Like I don't understand what they're
talking about. Yeah. So, And I specifically remember being interviewed
in nineteen ninety eight to ask if I got jetlag,
and I remember going like, no, no, but it is

(08:46):
a problem. It's unpleasant for some people. But if you're
in the military, or if you're some huge, big shot CEO,
they worry that, you know, could impair you as a
pilot or as a soldier, or as a big thinker
and the head of a company or deal closer. Yeah,
you don't want some some jet lags ceo lady going

(09:06):
in there and not making good decisions and making a
bad deal. Yeah, how can you be a game changer
if you don't have your a game on. That's got
to be the motto of some company. It probably is.
I thought I just made it up knowing the plug
somebody like Price Fister or something. And then what was

(09:28):
the other study? In two thousand and ten the Universe
at cal they did a study of hamsters. Yeah, and
it said that um on the health tip that the
the lab rats created new neurons at about half the
rate of rats who did not fly. So yeah, that's
not good. Now your brain is literally not functioning as
well as it should. It's not growing. Nope. Um, And

(09:49):
I said about the dying from that study about rats
dying from being exposed to jet lag, Yeah, the older
ones and um, they've also found that in humans you
can have a harder menstruation if you're a lady, and
you can develop heart disease and diabetes more readily. Basically,

(10:12):
your entire body is just totally thrown out of whack.
You're hungrier at weird times. Sure, you're just out of it.
You're you just don't feel good, stressed out, you have
a lot of stress hormones going. So what's going on, Chuck?
What is jet lag? Jet lag? Well, we need to

(10:33):
talk about the biological clock that we all have. It's
basically the article here describes it of groupings of interacting
molecules and cells throughout the body. That's a good way
to say it. Everything's working together. They tell our glands, Hey,
release these hormones at this time of day to make
you sleepy, melatonin, which we'll get to in more detail.
Maybe adjust your body temperature. It's a couple hours where

(10:54):
you're gonna wake up, so let's make you really hot
for some reason. And the body is all in tuned
with each other, all these things firing like a master timepiece.
Who wrote this anyway? This was that was a pretty
good Patrick Tiger. He's done some good stuff. Yeah, it
is a master timepiece. And there are twenty thousand nerve

(11:16):
cells called the super a chiasmatic nucleus we'll called the SCN.
It's at the front of the brain, right near the
optic nerve, and that is what keeps your circadian rhythm
in your sleep and waking cycles going. Yeah, like clockwork.
That's it. That's the biological clock the sea. Yep, it's
pretty neat um And the fact that it's located by

(11:36):
the optic nerve is kind of telling. Yeah, because one
of the ways that it sets itself it actually has
a it's on a set cycle twenty four point six
five hour cycle. Yeah, and it's since it's off a
little bit, um, it uses cues to reset itself. And
one of the big cues it uses is natural light. Yeah.
Some people think that it's the light, that the brain

(11:58):
is super photosensitive, that light really is the key to
everything there. Well, yeah, like the pineal gland apparently, even
though it's buried inside the brain, is very light responsive.
And the pineal gland is one of the things that
makes or it makes melatonin, which has to do with
sleep cycles. Melatonin is the good sleepy time stuff. So, um,

(12:19):
this whole, this whole rhythm, that twenty four points sixty
five hour cycle is called your circadian rhythm, circadian rhythm, right,
And when it's time to sleep, when it's about the
time that you went to sleep the night before and
it's dark out, your brain's melatonin production increases. And also

(12:40):
you've been building up in your head all day this
stuff called a DNA sign right, and that they recently
found has been linked to being sleepy. What's called sleep pressure.
You know, when you try to stay up and you're
just getting sleepier and sleeper it's harder and harder to resist.
That experience is called sleep pressure, and they think that
it's a DNA sign a response for that, and it

(13:01):
accumulates in the brain until finally about the time that
you should be falling asleep, the sleep pressure is just
too much to overcome and you fall asleep. Yeah. My, uh,
Emily's family, my Ohio family has a lot of sleep pressure.
We call it the yearly gas leak over the holidays.
That's funny, Emily. I'll look up at like seven forty five,

(13:21):
We'll be watching TV and like everybody's asleep after like
a big turkey dinner or something like that. Well, after
drinking all day and eating, oh yeah, stuff like that. Yeah,
and it's all warm and toasty, and so I get it,
but it's still kind of funny. Well, it's called the
gas leak, and you just made me feel so cozy
in that description. It is in a very cozy household. Um,
so you get the melatonin production increased, you got a

(13:43):
DNA sign built up, and you reach that sleep pressure
threshold and all this stuff is kind of going on
this general pattern that's a tune to you in your rhythms. Yeah,
you know, Are you a night owl? Do you like
to get up early? Do you like to sleep in late?
Like this is your own circadian rhythm. Yeah, and if
you mess any of that up without flying, you're going

(14:05):
to be thrown out of sorts. If you're a night
owl and all of a sudden you get a job
or you gotta get up super early, it's gonna suck
for a little while until your body adjusts. It is
gonna suck for a little while. Um, And it takes
a while for the body to adjust. But it also
we've never really, except for the last sixty years, we've
never really had the capability of exposing the body to

(14:26):
a sudden shock of just falling out of rhythm like that,
Like I'm flying to Australia right exactly. Yeah, where there's
like a twelve or thirteen hour difference. Man, I've never
I've done the europe thing, but I've never experienced yet
like to that degree. I imagine that it would take
me quite a while to adjust. It does, and it
sucks because it takes away a percentage of your vacation almost.

(14:50):
It definitely does. When you know, when you me and
I went to Japan, Yeah, got there out of bed.
We flew there, we flew west to east, No, east
to west, because we flew up and over Canada and
down Russia, which is easier can it was supposedly, but
even still, like when we got there, it was like
three in the morning and we're just like wide away. Yeah,

(15:12):
and that took a very little while to adjust. But
when we flew west to east on the way back
get killed. It took two solid weeks of being almost
like clinically out of our minds. Wow, before we got
back on our sleep. For that, actually, you were pretty whacky,
do you remember. Oh, yeah, there was a period where
like the first four days when we got up, we
would we would both wake up in the middle of

(15:33):
the night, wouldn't even talk. We'd just get up and
go out to the car and drive to crystals and
like eat some crystals and go back home and go
to bed. Yeah, and like we'd never done that before
and haven't done it since. But like we just did
it for like four nights in a row because of
jet like, so we were doing stuff like that all
the time. That's weird. But yeah, going from west to
east is the worst, and especially if it's like that

(15:55):
was a thirteen hour time difference. Yeah, what do they
call that? It's a phase delay going east to west
in a phase advance going west to east right. And
it's kind of like you can look at it like
if you're if your clock, if you're looking at a
clock and bedtime is a set time. In phase delay,
you're just taking that hour hand and moving it back,
so you're just putting off your bedtime a little longer. Yeah.

(16:15):
With phase advance, you're moving that hour hand closer suddenly
to your bedtime, even though your body is not ready
to sleep. It's bedtime now. Wow. Wow. Well, it's just
interesting that the body under it, you know, I mean,
it makes sense. I guess what I find interesting is
that we've figured out a way to technologically and artificially
subject the body to like this kind of shock, and

(16:38):
that it responds the way that it does. Yeah, you
know that. It's it starts like overproducing this hormone or
under producing that hormone and you go crazy. Well yeah,
and since you mentioned it, that's one of the things
that happened. It really it literally disrupts biological functions, releases
stress hormones, drives up your blood pressure, sends inflammation stimulating
chemical markers through your arteries. It's gonna mess up your appetite,

(17:02):
like you said, because you're used to eating at regular times,
and that's why you were eating crystal because it was
that was probably a dinner time in Japan, I guess. Yeah.
But haven't you ever noticed, like when you get up early,
like say you have an early flight or something like,
you can get up at a normal time, say you
normally get up at eight, Yeah, you're maybe you're a
little hungry or whatever, but you could skip breakfast. It's
not a big deal. But if you're up and like

(17:24):
moving around and at six or something like that, Yeah,
for some reason, you're just starving. Like hasn't that ever
happened to you? Yeah, I'm usually not super hungry in
the morning, regardless of what time I wake up. If
I'm up really early, I am ravenous for some reason.
And I'll also find and I've always wonder what this was,
that I'm not as hungry if I don't eat anything,
but if I have like the banana, then it just

(17:46):
makes me super hungry, right, Yeah, yeah, Or have you
noticed if you have like red meat the night before
whenever you get up the next day. You're just ravenous too. Really, yeah,
that happens to me. Interesting. I don't need a lot
of red meat anymore, but I'll oh you don't, no,
I mean just because Emily doesn't. So, but yeah, I'll
still have my steak every now and then. What are
you eating these days? I mean, same thing I've always

(18:07):
been eaten since I've been with Emily, which is a
lot of chicken and turkey and fish. What kind of fish? Uh?
It depends. I'll make like tilapia tacos or grilled salmon
or nice like uh, what's the more flaky? Like not
my heat, but I'll eat my he to the flounder. Yeah. Yeah,
I'll just go to the the farmer's market and what looks
what looks good and fresh? You know they just took

(18:29):
mackerel off the Safe to Eat or or Fine to
Eat environmentally list? Oh really, yeah, I didn't know it
was on that. Yeah. Tuna, of course, love tuna, oh man,
But you shouldn't eat a ton of tuna either. I
think the mercury. Oh is that right? Yeah, I eat
a lot of raw tuna. Yeah that they say that,
you know. Jeremy Piven supposedly had some sort of mercury

(18:50):
poisoning for eating too much sushi, which is why he knew. Yeah,
he had to bag out of some movie or show
because of it. But then I think later on they said, no,
I think he was using as an excuse and it
wasn't verified that he had mercury poisoning. That's a lot
like the twinkie defense. It meant yet Jeremy Piven had
the tuna defense. But that's why they did say, if
you're pregnant, you shouldn't need a lot of things. Oh yeah, sushi, Yeah, yeah,

(19:11):
for sure. Man, that was a sidetrack. Yeah, I think

(19:36):
I'm hungry, is what the deal? All right? So why
is it so difficult to overcome Josh? Well, like we said, um,
your body's your buddy's circadian rhythm is not exactly twenty
four hours, twenty four point six five hours, and so
every day you're ready for sleep a little later and

(19:56):
a little later and a little later. And that's why
Ellie Patrick Kiger thinks you are. It's easier to adjust
going from east to west because that means you're gonna
have to stay up later to hit your normal bedtime. Anyway,
and since we're already kind of doing that. It's not
that big of a deal. And it's not just him.
I think that's proven. Like NASA says the same thing, well,

(20:19):
NASA and Patrick Kiger. Another reason is is not just
light body temperature we said fluctuates. It's minimum temperature. Oh
I'm sorry, I thought it was maximum three hours before
you get up. It's minimum temperature. Yeah, all right. I
thought you like got really hot, like right before you
woke up. You might, but Team in is typically three

(20:43):
hours before you normally awake, okay. And they found that
if you're if you have to wake up like during
Team in, what your body is normally used to being
at Team in, right, that's when your jet legs the
absolute worst. And I think it's because that's a key
that your body, your whole body has, is like Okay,
we're still in deep sleep and we're going to be

(21:05):
in a while, and then all of a sudden it's like,
oh I have to wake up and go to this meeting.
The body's not it's it's whacked out of its normal
process of waking. I wonder if that sometimes if I
get up super early, I have a harder time warming
up through the day. I wonder if that has it
makes a difference. I would bet it does. Like if
you're used to waking up at a certain body temperature, Yeah,
you know it takes care that no matter what, every

(21:25):
single time, no matter why you're cold or how cold
you are, go spend fifteen minutes in a sauna, yeah,
and you will be right as rain. Yeah, it's just
a miracle wood box. Yeah. I do that with the
hot shower with the steam. Sometimes it doesn't take with
me really Yeah. Sometimes like I'll still get out of
the shower and like I'm chilled to the core still.

(21:46):
How you sit in there, Like I will stay in
there for a while and like really try to heat up,
and like most of the time, like it will get
my temperature like up. Yeah. Some with a sauna, it's
like resetting it back to your normal setting every time
you're kind of cold. Though for a man, like you're
often chili when I'm not. And I know I'm super hot.

(22:07):
You are very hot, but I think you're also a
little cold. Put it's put us together and we make
a very well adjusted exactly human body temperature wise, very middle. Um.
So ask anyone what their remedy is for jet lag
and you'll get ten different answers. Ask tender for people,
you get ten different answers. That's what you say. Um,

(22:28):
ask Bruce Willis what is he going to say? Make
fist fits toes? Make fist with your toes. It's always
been one of my favorite things, and I've tried it
and it's silly. Of course it doesn't work, but I
just do it now because it wasn't die Hard. Yeah,
Argyle told him to do that. No, no no, no, it
was a guy on the plane. I thought it was
Argyle the driver. It was. It was on the plane
as ever flying in and of course in die Hard,

(22:50):
it was just to set up to get him without
shoes and socks on. Yeah, because I played a part
in the movie. That's a good movie. She's Day Finster. Yeah. Um.
But like I said, some people use herbal remedies. Some
people take melatonin, which is not FDA proof. But you
can take melatonin and uthotic melotonin. We should say it
saysn't this article it tells you how much it taken

(23:11):
win and we'll tell you too, but we should also
add a disclaimer. Melatonin has interactions with drugs like diabetes drugs,
blood thinners, birth control pills. You may want to check
out what melatonin might do with your medication before you
take it. You definitely should. Yeah, some people just say,
you know what, I'm gonna take a red eye and

(23:32):
I'm gonna take some valume and drink some Scotch and
just knock myself out for the whole flight and that'll
do the trick. Yeah, that works if you want to die, Yeah,
explain well, there was a thirty six year old woman
who recently died of a stroke because and she was
otherwise healthy apparently, Yeah, but she passed out on a
seven hour flight or went to sleep or whatever. But

(23:54):
she slept for seven hours on a flight and developed thrombosis,
which is a blood clot and apparently it went from
probably her leg to her brain. Yeah. And again when
we went to Japan, I think it was Japan Airlines,
they make you get up. Yeah, they're like, okay, it's
like it's big, it's play stretching time. Yeah, and they

(24:15):
show you how to do it, like sitting down at
your seat, but they're also like, why don't you get
up to walk around? So wow, Yeah, you kind of
have to because you can develop a fatal blood clot
just from sitting on a plane because of the change
in pressure and just sitting for that long. Yeah, you're
not supposed to sleep in a sitting position, right. The
body is meant to be horizontal and prone, right, But
that's just for rich people on flack. Oh up in

(24:37):
first class now where they have the sleepers, Yeah, that's
they're so obnoxious. They should put first class in the
back so you don't have to walk through that scene.
I know. The funniest is when they have like the
gauzy curtains separating first class coach and you can it's like,
I see that you're having a salad. I can see
your salad. That hotel looks nice. Give me some of

(24:59):
that salad. So there are all kinds of home remedies
in Little Wives tales of what you can do, right,
But if you're an expert, like if you're a NASA
or if you are Chicago's Rush University Medical Center, you
have some real advice like gradually adjusting your circadian rhythm

(25:20):
actually using a lightbox, which is a lot of effort,
but I bet it works. It does. It also works
for seasonal effective disorder. Sure, So there's actually I came
across the paper and all tweeted out and posted on
Facebook or something, blog about it. We'll do something with it.
But because I couldn't get I couldn't get it enough

(25:42):
in time to really speak about it. But there's there's
this guy who came up with a paper that's basically
like a computational method for offsetting jet leg and figuring
out how to adjust your schedule accordingly. Is it like
this in the article? Yeah, that's the impression that I have,
but it's like really detailed, but basically Chicago's Russia University

(26:04):
Medical Center researchers say, what you want to do is,
if you're going from west to east, which is the
devil one right phase advance, you want to start going
to bed an hour earlier every day. Yeah, and like
several days, maybe like five days before your trip, you
want to start going to bed an hour earlier, and
not just an hour earlier across the board, but earlier

(26:26):
and earlier and earlier. To wear right before your trip,
you're going to bed about five hours earlier. And if
you're going to take melatonin and you've done all your research,
you want to take half a half a milligram of
melatonin four and a half hours before bedtime. Yeah, and
then so you want to progressively push that time earlier
and earlier in the day as you're going to bed

(26:47):
earlier and earlier at night. And then when you wake up,
blast yourself with the lightbox. Yeah. Oh well east to west.
That was west to east. Okay, yeah, east to west.
You want to not blast yourself with light. You want
to like wear sunglasses in the morning and avoid light
in the morning. But they say, use a light box

(27:08):
at your normal bedtime and stay up later, right, which
makes sense. It sounds pretty torture, it does. There's a
New York Times article too, called a Battle Plan for
jet lag, and they've done a study with Major League
Baseball actually because they travel a lot. And they said
that over two year span, teams that went eastward gave

(27:31):
up an average of one extra run per game. Huh.
That interesting. Yeah, But they say, which is the old
I guess it's not a wives tale if NASA is
confirming it. They say it takes about one day per
light per time zone to get back into that rhythm
in general, and they say the same thing, you got
to re to regulate your exposure to light. So when

(27:54):
you get in that hotel room, if you're traveling east,
you got to expose yourself to light early an advance
at clock. If you're traveling west, expose yourself to light
at dusk and in the early part of the evening
and delay that clock. And they'd say, like, you know,
close the curtains, put a towel over your clock radio,
like get it as dark as possible. Don't look at

(28:15):
any computer screens and laptops. They say you shouldn't eat
like a big meal or a spicy food like the
first day you get there. Don't like dive right into
that vacation because that can mess you up as well.
Gastro intestinaly speaking and what else. Well, the CDC says
they don't have any suggestions other than like eat a

(28:37):
balanced diet and make sure you get some exercise jerks.
And it's like, of course you're gonna say that, CDC.
Do you have any other suggestions, and they say, yes,
wear loose clothing on the flight, avoid alcohol and caffeine well.
And afterward they say that first day on vacation, you
shouldn't be hit in the alcohol right either, Yeah, because

(28:57):
that'll just mess up your sleep period. Yeah, and then
have you heard of this thing called the Valki no
vl k team of scientists in Finland invented this thing,
and it because their belief is that the brain is
it's all about photosensitivity, and so they actually it's sort
of like an iPod, but instead of the ear plugs,

(29:18):
it emits light through your ear canal directly to the brain,
and they said it works. They tested three hundred and
fifty subjects over four years and found that there is
definitely brain activity when the little Valki is on, and
that nine out of ten subjects felt reduction and stress,
seasonal depression and anxiety. And so they're using it for

(29:39):
winter blues and PMS and jetlag and migraines, all sorts
of stuff. Fantastic. Yeah, I don't know how much of
it is, Zoe. I'm curious if it is the price
of an iPod or just the size of an iPod.
That's a good question. Yeah, I'd try it though I
get pretty bad jetlag. That's like when we go to
do events now, I try to fly out a day
or really just to sort of adjust. Yeah, but um,

(30:02):
I can do east coast, West coast. It doesn't hit
me that bad. Um, Yeah, it's more like international that
gets me. Yeah. Yeah, I haven't had it very bad.
Like when we went to the TCA's it didn't. I
didn't seem out of sorts there or back. I get
a little lot of sorts, do you. Yeah, but not
super bad. I'm glad, Chuck, Yeah, you got anything else?

(30:46):
I got nothing else? Okay, that was jet lag everybody. Yeah,
and uh, that kind of goes in with our sleeping sweep.
We've done a bunch of those, like how much sleep
do you really need? Um? What was the one about
the sleep aid? Remember the sleep Baby where like you
could stay up for forty eight hours without any sleep? Yeah?
I don't remember the title of that one. Who wants

(31:07):
to do that? I love my sleep? That was a
good episode though. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of people wish
that you didn't have to sleep. I would imagine not me.
I'm with you. I like to sleep too. If you
want to hear any of those, you can go to
our website Stuff you Should Know dot com and click
on the podcast page and to start searching, go to town.
You're gonna find some cool stuff. And if you want

(31:27):
to read this article, how jetlag works. Go to HowStuffWorks
dot com and in the searchbar type jet leg and
it will bring up the spot by an article. And
I said, searchbar, so it's time for listening to me, Josh.
I called this a very sweet email from Wendy, and
I will be reading some of it and summarizing some
of it because it's super long. She starts out, congratulations

(31:49):
on the launch of your TV show. Thank you. I've
been reading online chatter and I hope it's going comfortably
for you behind the scenes, because you hear these reactions.
It's a bummer when those weird people on the block
who mow the lawn naked or pride themselves on not
being tricked into attending college. I think that they are
qualified critics. Hopefully you're all too experienced by now to
do more than laugh at the losers and just keep

(32:11):
doing what you enjoy. So I told her that was
very nice, and it came in a good time because
people could be mean. Man, people have been kind of mean,
but hey, we have pretty thick skin. We've been doing
this for years. We got the armor on. So anyway,
that was very nice Wendy, and then she just wants
she's been meaning to write in for several years to
thank us. She started listening after she moved from Seattle

(32:32):
to Burbank in two thousand and eight, and it was
a pretty depressing time for her. She said, stay at
home mom, and we really got her through that time.
A year later, she moved to Utah. She kept downloading
because Chuck was on board. It's nice, yeah, And it
was like having my brothers around for an hour or
so every day. It was really nice. She said. It

(32:53):
was clear by that point, even if we didn't know
each other, that you guys would probably be friends of
mine if we knew each other, and you would not
only appreciate the wild cultural shift from Hollywood in Salt
Lake City, but also be more fascinated than turned off
by my strange family connections. And she didn't explain what
that met. Very mysterious. Then she moved from Youthaw to

(33:15):
Massachusetts and she was eight months pregnant and we really
helped her through that, and so she was super appreciative
of that. And then she says, this a long time ago,
you had a many side conversation about what romance meant
and seemed to conclude that it was guys who had
a manly friend crush on another guy that they knew
and they'd really enjoy hanging out with. I don't think
we invented that. No, No, that's commonly what the romance

(33:38):
is known as. I may be a woman, but I
do have a major friend crush on you. Guys. You
filled in for the awesome friends and family that I've
missed intelligently shooting the breeze for the last while, almost
five years now. That is really nice. Yeah, so she's
moving around and we've we've helped her out as substituting
for her. Smart friends, keep podcasting, take care of yourselves,

(33:58):
you know that. In the zombiepo collipse, I definitely have
your backs. By the way, my weapon of choice would
be an iron age Scandinavian sacks in one hand, a
long handled axe in the other, and a shotgun I
could carry across my back. So, Wendy, you are well
armed a lady, and you'll be right by our sides.

(34:19):
Thanks for that, Wendy. Yeah, um, we're glad we could
help you through the last five years. Can you believe
it's been like five years? Pretty soon I saw a
tweet from a listener that said that they were off
to college and they started listening in eighth grade. Well,
and Sarah are amazing eleven year old fan about fifteen.
Oh man, that's nuts. And she she's gonna be driving soon.

(34:40):
She is. I want to fix up with my nephew.
It's too bad they don't live in the same state. Well, hey,
we're living. If you want to tell us how we
helped you out, or helped you through some rough times,
or we're just there for you, you know, like the
pals we are, we always want to hear that kind
of thing, you can tweet to us at sy SKA podcasts.

(35:03):
Oh how about this. You can also tell us any
of your jet leg remedies. Yeah, I'd like to hear them. Um.
You can tweet to us at sysk podcast You can
join us on Facebook dot com. You can send us
an email to Stuff Podcast at HowStuffWorks dot com. Stuff
you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more

(35:25):
podcasts My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.