In a previous article I said I would write about how to beat jet lag and flu season but that information is no good without a basic understanding of how acidity comes about, in the body or on the plane.
One of the ironic things about life is that Man loves complexity but at his core is really simple., so it is with all sickness and health. The first thing that has to happen for illness to take hold in a body is for inflammation to spread. The Latin expression for the beginnings of inflammation is calor, dolor, rubor and tumor, meaning heat, pain, redness and swelling. Inflammation is partly produced by acidification of the internal environment organs or tissue. If you stop this one thing from happening you stop inflammation in its tracks and so it is with flu season and jet lag for that matter.
How do you help your body stop inflammation? There are many ways to add to the arsenal your body already uses, as I trained as a nutritional therapist my preference is through diet. However the mechanism of how this is done deserves a mention before naming specific tools.
Understanding the pH scale is a good starting point. It stand for the Power of Hydrogen (pH). The pH scale is from 0 to 14. Nought to 7 is acid and 7 to 14 is alkaline. While both extremes exist in the human body, some functions work best in acid mediums while other prefer an alkaline medium.
An important point to note is that it takes roughly 20 parts alkalinity to neutralize 1 part acidity in the body. Most modern diets are over acid in composition thus laying the ground for inflammation and the flu (especially at Christmas and all that festive food).
As for jet lag, the most overlooked aspect of the flying experience is the environment it all takes place in. A lack of air in the cabin, acid forming food, copious amounts of alcohol, and the stress of getting to the airport. All these little stresses add up to the big STRESS. This also contributes to more inflammation, so the answer is to stay as stress free as you can from all sources. If you are a frequent flier you might be in need of some helpful short cuts to make sure you stay on the right side of that scale more often which will do wonders for your health and help you on your way to travelling jet lag free. Here is a list of some of the best tools I know as a flier and a nutritional therapist :-
Unpasteurized apple cider vinegar – in hot water. Freshly squeezed lemon juice – in hot water. Green vegetable juices of all varieties, freshly squeezed only. Wheat grass & Barley grass juice if you can stomach it regularly. Bicarbonate of Soda & Molasses 2:1 – in hot water if you can stomach it. Zeolite mineral clay mixed in cold water. Montmorillonite clay in cold water.
In addition to choosing foods rich in alkaline properties it is always a good idea, as is eating a diet with less acid forming foods, especially while flying.
Holistic tools to help you balance out acidity formed in the body include, meditation, chi kung,barefoot walking/running, swimming in the sea or taking a salt bath.
Not normal recommendations but very effective! What were you expecting from a healthy jet lag elimination advocate? As with any health enhancement program it is wise to consult your trusted health adviser before embarking on nutrition or fitness programs especially if you have pre-existing conditions. These tips with other fundamentals of a healthy jet lag free flying experience will always ensure you arrive well while others lament jet lag. P.H.A.R.E. Well
by Christopher BABAYODE's blog at Ecademy. 0 Comments
A question I'm often asked is "what is the easiest thing I can do to get over jet lag?" As an advocate of healthy flying and natural remedies for jet lag my explanation invariably comes back to handling the environment. For most fliers doing this means using methods they are comfortable with and methods that suit their lifestyle (more about that later).
The environment in question is the one you experience on the plane and the one created in your body during the flight and even before you board the plane. In short I am referring to the plane and your biochemistry. Your biochemistry is the most important of the two because it processes the planes environment.
The sub heading of the Frequent Traveller article section reads “the world is your office….but you’d rather stay at home”. This month the heading should have added ….and go to sleep. The article is about the nightmare of waking up in the middle of the night with jet lag and not being able to get back to sleep.
It strikes me as a real shame to see a seasoned traveller trot out the same old tips in an attempt to beat the jet lag demons.
Our intrepid traveller neglects to tell us how she managed to stay up all day to get on local time. Acclimatising to local time is a good thing but the manner in which she does it is a different matter.
Did she turn to that faithful standby caffeine, which may help during the day but will exact it’s revenge on you by night. As a central nervous system stimulant its effects can last longer in different people and beyond the ingestion period.
Going easy on the wine at dinner is rather non-descript. Did she or didn’t she? We don’t know for sure, however the parched throat and pounding head would only be half the story. Acid pH tends to be one of the main hangovers from flying and alcohol consumption in the air or on the ground is never going to be a good idea so soon after a flight.
Absent is the mention or direct acknowledgement of sleep rituals. Those things we habitually do consciously and subconsciously that precede sleep. In their place are some classic no no’s!
Red light LED alarm clocks by the bed side is one of them. Melatonin’s release to aid sleep depends on darkness and red light doesn’t count as darkness. Look it up in the avoid jet lag manual 101!
If you are ever visited by the jet lag demons and you can’t drift back to sleep within fifteen minutes of waking get up. Get up and start the sleep ritual all over again to tell your body it is time to sleep again. Staying in bed and tossing and turning is not a good strategy.
If all else fails and you find yourself awake at dawn (between 4-6 for most places), get up and use this time to get on local time. This is the one time every 24 hours when you can advance or delay the body clock by seeking or avoiding natural light. Use it.
Whatever you do stay off the caffeine habit. Adrenal exhaustion is not a good look especially on frequent fliers.
When I told a colleague I was heading for the gym after my 11 hour London to Hong Kong flight he looked at me as if I had grown two heads. I often get asked if it is okay to exercise on the day of travel. The short answer is yes, as long as it is for the right reasons.
The big ugly reason is of course minimizing jet lag. While most flyers concentrate on the use of outward energy, subtle energy is of as much part of the solution when you look at natural ways of beating jet lag.
The detail of how to do this lies in helping you acclimatize quickly and assisting you achieve a body reset. Now is not be the time to attempt a personal best. Any restorative types of exercise that work your body mildly are a better choice over your normal routine. As the saying goes “when in Rome do as Romans do” – you would not exercise at odd hours at home, so if you arrive at odd hours on local time there is no reason to exercise then either.
I find the most successful use of exercise on the day of arrival is to help re-distribute my subtle energy. This energy is held within the meridian points and channels of the body and is a body-clock in its own right. The meridians come into peak activity one after the other in a particular order every day. Resetting this “clock” helps you get onto local time quickly. You can learn to trace these meridians individually for the same effect. I learnt this tracing method from Donna Eden, her books on subtle energy are a treasure of useful tools to mastering subtle energy.
What type of exercises support this energy redistribution? I can use a combination of exercises. Most of the time I keep it simple and do anything from light stretching with deep breathing to a light jog to work up a sweat. In the early days of my flying career I did do too much. I found it ate into my reserves of energy. The net result was that I lowered my immunity and became susceptible to colds.
There is also a mental aspect to being able to exercise on the day of travel. We all know that the journey is stressful on the body, being able to get into the gym takes mental strength as well as physical strength. Building this equity is good practice and can carry over to other areas of your life where enduring through stress also pays off in the end.
The moral of the story is keep it simple, don’t overdo it and make it enjoyable above all else. It is nice to see a well-regarded site such as LIVESTRONG.COM agree that exercise on the day of travel is beneficial. Read their article on exercise and jet lag here.
