flight

by

Does Jet Lag Impact Your Stress Level?

I’ve asked a lot of travelers this question, and consistently noted that about half of people say yes, and about half say no. Jet lag is one of those things international travelers inevitably have to manage, and something that we either learn to put up with, ignore, or (at the very least) use as a good explanation for our coworkers, family, and friends after we get back from a trip and feel like we’re stumbling through a fourth dimension for a week.

Interestingly, those who admit that jet lag causes them quite a bit of anxiety discover that it’s actually worrying about jet lag that causes them the most stress (how will it affect them physically?  Mentally?  Emotionally?) while those that say jet lag doesn’t bother them often say that while jet lag is irritating, it relaxes them in a certain way — unlike any other physiological phenomenon.   These are people who actually don’t mind having their natural body rhythms thrown off because it is a break from their daily rut of work-eat-sleep-worry-work-eat-sleep-rinse-and-repeat.   In other words, jet lag is just a feature of being on vacation, of doing something different.

Given the varying reactions and all the anecdotes and quick-fix recommendations that abound out there on how to deal with jet lag, it’s worth taking a closer look.

Jet lag results from alterations to the body’s circadian rhythms caused by trans-meridian (west–east, or east-west) air travel.  When traveling across a number of time zones, your body’s natural pattern is upset as the cycles that govern times for sleeping, eating, and body temperature regulation no longer correspond to your environment.  To the extent that your body cannot immediately realign these rhythms, you are “jet lagged.”  Symptoms can either aggravate anxiety, or be mistaken for intensified side effects of medications.  Some of the most common jet lag symptoms include:

  • Ÿ         Headache and irritability;
  • Ÿ         Balance and coordination problems;
  • Ÿ         Difficulty concentrating;
  • Ÿ         Early awakening (if flying west) or trouble falling asleep (if flying east); and
  • Ÿ         Interrupted sleep (to say the least).

Jet lag usually occurs with a change of three time zones or more, and the extent to which you’re affected depends on the number of time zones crossed.  If you’re unfamiliar with jet lag (or just want to explain it as painlessly as possible to your great-aunt), it’s worth noting that the maximum possible disruption is plus or minus twelve hours.  If the time difference between two locations is greater than twelve hours, subtract that number from 24 to understand the “adjusted” time zone difference.  New Zealand, for example, being nineteen hours ahead of Pacific Standard Time, would pose only a five-hour jet lag challenge to a traveler from California.

The recovery time for jet leg is generally one day per time zone crossed, although many people (particularly those who travel more) are able to recover faster.  Women are affected by jet lag more than men, since normal nighttime and daytime body rhythms are connected to estrogen levels.  Recovery will also depend on whether your flight(s) are overnight or scheduled during the day.  You’ll typically experience more jet lag if you begin a long flight mid-morning or early afternoon than if you take a “red eye” flight departing at eight p.m. or later (it helps, of course, if you can actually fall asleep on an airplane).

Unfortunately, there are no proven ways to avoid jet lag altogether.  You can talk to your general care practitioner about where specifically you’re going, and how to strategize flight times and sleep hours, to try to minimize the impacts.  Your doctor may suggest getting only a minimal amount of sleep the night before your flight (so that you’re naturally sleepy when you arrive at your destination) or taking a prescription-strength sleep medication for the first several nights of your trip.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

How will you feel after making this trip?!

by

How to Talk to Your Travel Companion After Your Trip

On a flight home, have you ever sat near a couple of people who clearly went on a trip together, and had a major falling out?  They might be arguing about what they didn’t get to see or do on their vacation, or who was to blame for cheaping out and choosing the Pickpocket Express bus to the Colosseum instead of taking a taxi.  You might get to hear every painful detail about who left whom sitting outside the Acropolis after dark, or how good-for-nothing Travel Partner A having a little too much to drink resulted in Mr./Ms. Perfect Travel Partner B having half their luggage stolen.  Have you ever tried to watch an in-flight movie while these people are going at it?  It’s usually impossible — and depressing, especially after one of them swears the other one off,  grabs their travel pillow, and marches back to that empty seat right next to the lavatory.  Thud.  That’s the sound of Travelocity’s little Roaming Gnome falling to his knees over a fatally failed travelationship.

Since many people are wrapping up their vacations for the summer, and about half of us aren’t traveling with a spouse or on our own, but with 1) a good friend, 2) a significant other, or 3) a relative, now might be a great time to look at how to have a heart-to-heart with your touring mate.  There’s no doubt that travel can be a stressful and emotional experience and can strain even the most solid relationship.  Furthermore, you can be surprised, overwhelmed, and disappointed by what you learn about your companion in a different setting, and while doing different things — and your disappointment and frustration can come to the surface when the challenges of travel start to wear you down.

While all trips must come to an end at some point, the last thing you usually want is for your relationship to end with it.  Think about how challenging it is to find someone who has the time, resources, and interest to go where you want to go, and it becomes clear that even though you might have had a major negative “episode” with someone on a trip, you should put aside your frustration (and your jet lag) to get to the root of the issues.  Here are some specific things you might talk to your companion about.

When you worried about each other.   Many of us may sound angry and accusatory when really we were fearful about our companion’s safety.  Did your travel partner not come home until 6 am a night or two in Stockholm?  Did you freak them out by going to the apartment of someone you just met in Copenhagen? The last thing you want to say (or hear) is, Don’t ever do that again!  No one wants to feel like they’re on vacation with their mother.  You might try saying, we were alone together in a foreign country, and I couldn’t reach you.  Could you send me a text message the next time so I know you’re okay?  Still think they’ll feel micromanaged?  Next time, ask the person they’re partying with to text you.  Chances are they’ll do it — if only so you won’t spoil their fun by trying to track them down. 

Close calls.  There may be scenarios that you replay in your mind because they almost led to a major problem, such as nearly getting separated from your companion while boarding a flight, or being followed by someone until the two of you reached your hotel.  You should talk about what led up to these events, and recognize that there’s usually no one to blame; one or both of you was simply distracted.  In fact, most travel “mistakes” can be attributed to distractions.  What could the two of you done differently to avoid getting distracted?

Who was more comfortable doing what — and who didn’t do much of anything to help.  A frequent battle between travel partners revolves around who feels like they’re doing all the “dirty” work on the trip — watching bags, checking out, dealing with obnoxious bellhops, etc. If you’re the one who feels like you did all the grunt work throughout the trip, you should understand that your partner probably didn’t even notice.  They may have been so preoccupied just making sure they had all their things, and that their pants weren’t tucked into their socks, etc. that they didn’t even notice your efforts, or your growing resentment.  If your companion is generally considerate, don’t think they’ve turned into a travel snob who just wants you to wait on them.  They probably just got overwhelmed.  If you have a partner who suffers from some social anxiety, ask them next time if they can start packing your things while you straighten out the minibar bill with the cranky manager downstairs.  You’ll make it clear that there’s work to be done on both sides, while not getting them upset by asking them to do something they definitely won’t want to do.

Major differences in energy levels.  Even if you’ve known your travel partner for years and understand whether they are a morning person or a night owl, or who’s often a little slower to react than whom, people’s energy levels can be significantly different on a trip.  Jet lag, environmental factors, excitement, and stress can make someone hyperactive, or slow them down to sloth mode.  You weren’t having fun on your trip if you could barely get your partner out of bed when you were ready to go for hours (or vice versa).  Don’t resort to saying, you were slowing me down the whole damn trip or you were running around like a crazy person for half our vacation.  Instead, see what you could have done to better match energy levels.  Could you have gone out on your own tour in the morning, or hit the exercise room or your blog while your partner was trying to wake up? Again, try not to blame each other.  We’re all victims of our circadian rhythms and our hormones.

Major differences in personal space needs.  Did you feel overwhelmed and claustrophobic after eight hours of crowds in the Forbidden City, while your partner thrived on all the activity and had a hard time leaving?  You probably didn’t get along very well in your hotel room that night.  You may be used to spending one or two hours a day with your friend/significant other/relative — not ten or twelve.  No one says you have to arrive or leave places at the same time.  Even if it will cost you an extra taxi ride, talk about how the two of you could have planned a little differently so that you were both happy — and not sick of each other (or your trip).

After discussing these things with your travel companion, the two of you might decide not to travel together again — and if so, at least you’ll have made the decision with understanding, not anger, and you won’t leave a stain on the places you visited together.  And chances are, the next time you go abroad, your companion will not only still be talking to you; they’ll be glued to your travel blog the whole time.  Who knows, in a few years the two of you could travel together again — this time as part of a larger group.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Did you have a wonderful time with your travel partner? Or did you often think about leaving them far, far behind — especially towards the end of your trip? 

You should talk together about the challenges — or your relationship might end along with the vacation.

by

Has 9/11 Become the Safest Day of the Year to Travel?

Quite possibly.  Very possibly.  And why, you ask?  Are you kidding?

Have you been to a major American or other Western airport on 9/11?  The lines are shorter, but the screenings take longer, because they’re more thorough.  There are fewer distractions.  The music blaring from Duty-Free is turned down a bit; there isn’t the same raucous chatter from tour groups and families about to depart.  Everyone is watching everyone else.

The pilots and flight attendants are more vigilant.  Passengers don’t leave bags unattended for five seconds (much less a couple minutes) to recheck their boarding time on the screen.  There’s a subtle, but depressing and deadened hush from gate to gate, from terminal to terminal.  Planes are triple-checked instead of double-checked.  Air traffic controllers watch every move on their monitors and across the sky as if their lives depended on it.

Which to me, at least, all suggests that 9/11 may in fact be the safest day of the entire year to get on an airplane — at least in the West, and at any number of other areas scarred by a  terror attack.

But would you care to fly on 9/11?  My guess is no.

As we approach the 12th anniversary of 9/11, it’s worth taking a brief look at what’s happened at airports and on airplanes, both in terms of safety and security.  Besides a couple of terrifying near-misses involving a shoe bomb and liquid gels, there hasn’t been a major incident or threat.  Newer security measures (which are now years old) border on knee-jerk reactions  (no one had to remove their shoes before Richard Reid’s threat; no one had a problem with our jug of water until the scare with the bottles of chemicals onboard).

It’s impossible to say if terrorists want an encore of  a certain tragedy to drive their message home.  From what I’ve observed, they usually move on to some other tactic once they’re successful at a particular “mission.”  Take the World Trade Center, for example: after some unsuccessful tries to bring it down, the jihadists accomplished their “mission” and moved on to… well, a variety of other things.  Embassies will always remain vulnerable targets.  Car bombings are smaller-scale, but accomplish the same basic “goal.”

To me, the people that seem most scared — and maybe rightfully so — are the ones with the Eurail or Amtrak passes.  I need to glance through my own travel anxiety book every time I get on a train now.  Of course I’m scared.  Isn’t everyone?

Will I be flying on 9/11 this year?  No, because it’s still a little too hot in Turkey during the first half of September.  I’ve given myself a good reason (excuse?) to fly on the less auspicious date of 9/26 instead.

Will you be flying on 9/11 this year?  Maybe not, since it’s coming up fast, you might have other plans, and it still holds that sickening power of imagination and dread over us.  But would you consider doing so in the future?  You might.  From my look around during the last 9/11, it seems about as safe as you can get, and your courage — and indifference to the date — flies right in the face of what every jihadist most wants.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

It’s 9/11.  Am I all alone in here?

 

by

Has 9/11 Become the Safest Day of the Year to Travel?

Quite possibly.  Very possibly.  And why, you ask?  Are you kidding?

Have you been to a major American or other Western airport on 9/11?  The lines are shorter, but the screenings take longer, because they’re more thorough.  There are fewer distractions.  The music blaring from Duty-Free is turned down a bit; there isn’t the same raucous chatter from tour groups and families about to depart.  Everyone is watching everyone else.

The pilots and flight attendants are more vigilant.  Passengers don’t leave bags unattended for five seconds (much less a couple minutes) to recheck their boarding time on the screen.  There’s a subtle, but depressing and deadened hush from gate to gate, from terminal to terminal.  Planes are triple-checked instead of double-checked.  Air traffic controllers watch every move on their monitors and across the sky as if their lives depended on it.

Which to me, at least, all suggests that 9/11 may in fact be the safest day of the entire year to get on an airplane — at least in the West, and at any number of other areas scarred by a  terror attack.

But would you care to fly on 9/11?  My guess is no.

As we approach the 12th anniversary of 9/11, it’s worth taking a brief look at what’s happened at airports and on airplanes, both in terms of safety and security.  Besides a couple of terrifying near-misses involving a shoe bomb and liquid gels, there hasn’t been a major incident or threat.  Newer security measures (which are now years old) border on knee-jerk reactions  (no one had to remove their shoes before Richard Reid’s threat; no one had a problem with our jug of water until the scare with the bottles of chemicals onboard).

It’s impossible to say if terrorists want an encore of  a certain tragedy to drive their message home.  From what I’ve observed, they usually move on to some other tactic once they’re successful at a particular “mission.”  Take the World Trade Center, for example: after some unsuccessful tries to bring it down, the jihadists accomplished their “mission” and moved on to… well, a variety of other things.  Embassies will always remain vulnerable targets.  Car bombings are smaller-scale, but accomplish the same basic “goal.”

To me, the people that seem most scared — and maybe rightfully so — are the ones with the Eurail or Amtrak passes.  I need to glance through my own travel anxiety book every time I get on a train now.  Of course I’m scared.  Isn’t everyone?

Will I be flying on 9/11 this year?  No, because it’s still a little too hot in Turkey during the first half of September.  I’ve given myself a good reason (excuse?) to fly on the less auspicious date of 9/26 instead.

Will you be flying on 9/11 this year?  Maybe not, since it’s coming up fast, you might have other plans, and it still holds that sickening power of imagination and dread over us.  But would you consider doing so in the future?  You might.  From my look around during the last 9/11, it seems about as safe as you can get, and your courage — and indifference to the date — flies right in the face of what every jihadist most wants.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

It’s 9/11.  Am I all alone in here?

by

Travel, Terror, Strategy, and Luck

It’s August.  I don’t need to know it’s high-travel season; I read your blog entries written from around the world every day.  If you’re not on a trip right now, then you just got back from somewhere, or you’re ready to go abroad, or you’re thinking  about it.  This is the time of year when many of us most want and need a vacation.  Summer is running out; students go back to school soon; the dreary months of the year seem depressingly near.  Many of us wait until August to take our summer vacation because we had too much to do at home in June and July.  We’re relieved to finally, finally be on our way.  Then the State Department issues a travel alert… for the entire month of August.  Do they call it a terror alert?  No, they call it a travel alert.  That makes us feel so much better, right?  And yet do we sit on our passports and let the doubt and fear creep into our minds?  From what I can tell, the answer is definitely no.

The anticipated targets are just vague enough, and just specific enough, to be infuriating.  The embassies are closed across the Middle East and North Africa.  But I’m not in the Middle East, you answer.  Should I stay the heck away from the embassies in all the most popular European capitals because they might be threatened too?  Well, we don’t know.  It would be a “good idea.” It might be a good idea, too, if you weren’t on top of the Eiffel Tower at 3 pm on a beautiful afternoon.  Or aboard The Eye in London the next evening.  Or somewhere else insanely popular at an insanely popular time.  The point is, there are lots of ways to minimize that thing we call personal risk.  Personal risk is about reducing the chance that you’ll be in the wrong place at the wrong time.  And what does it really add up to?  Does something either happen or not, and we’re along for the ride either way?

 The questions really is, does a travel alert actually change our behavior?  I’ve talked to tourists who won’t take a direct flight across the United States because they believe there will be a repeat of the 9/11 attacks.  They will lay over in Toronto on a flight from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., and then tell me how much safer they feel when they land.  I’ve talked to other people who won’t stay in any kind of large chain hotel overseas because they think that an independent or locally-owned hotel won’t be targeted.  I’ve been on board a flight from Paris to London that was running three hours late, and the people next to me didn’t complain once because they would rather sit on the tarmac all night rather than deal with the stress of riding through the oft-threatened Chunnel.

Personally, the travel alert isn’t going to change my plans to fly into Istanbul next month.  The fact that Turkey isn’t on the Middle East and North African “danger list” hasn’t inspired me to keep my plans.  I just don’t think anything’s going to happen to me.  I trust my instincts, my common sense.  I trust in my vigilance to notice my surroundings, to know when something’s “wrong,” and to be a small part of preventing a tragedy.  Is this arrogant?  Yes, I think so.  It distracts me from the idea that I believe in my own luck to save me from a serious incident abroad.  Am I alone in believing this?  No, I don’t think so.

Most of us will use the travel alert to reduce our personal risk.  We might choose to travel “smaller,” travel more quietly.  We’ll travel “smarter,” whatever that means, and keep an eye out.  The more cautious among us will stay the hell out of and off “popular” destinations and routes, and go to bed thinking about how there’s no strategy for luck.  The more brazen among us will feel more relaxed and invigorated after 2,000 miles on a Eurail pass without seeing a single nervous-looking security guard.  That’s 2,000 more miles without incident… ha!  And we’ll keep going, and going, and going.

If nothing happens this month, then we’ll all feel lucky, and we’ll love traveling (and in one sentimental figurative embrace, the world) even more than we do now.  If something does happen, then we’ll rage over it, we’ll adjust, we’ll wait, and head right back out.  With a more watchful eye this time.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

When I was in Russia in late June, I didn’t say anything to anyone about the two unattended bags below the Olympic countdown clock.  Now, I would.  Would it make me feel any safer?

by

Does Jet Lag Impact Your Stress Level?

I’ve asked a lot of travelers this question, and consistently noted that about half of people say yes, and about half say no. Jet lag is one of those things international travelers inevitably have to manage, and something that we either learn to put up with, ignore, or (at the very least) use as a good explanation for our coworkers, family, and friends after we get back from a trip and feel like we’re stumbling through a fourth dimension for a week.

Interestingly, those who admit that jet lag causes them quite a bit of anxiety discover that it’s actually worrying about jet lag that causes them the most stress (how will it affect them physically?  Mentally?  Emotionally?) while those that say jet lag doesn’t bother them often say that while jet lag is irritating, it relaxes them in a certain way — unlike any other physiological phenomenon.   These are people who actually don’t mind having their natural body rhythms thrown off because it is a break from their daily rut of work-eat-sleep-worry-work-eat-sleep-rinse-and-repeat.   In other words, jet lag is just a feature of being on vacation, of doing something different.

Given the varying reactions and all the anecdotes and quick-fix recommendations that abound out there on how to deal with jet lag, it’s worth taking a closer look.

Jet lag results from alterations to the body’s circadian rhythms caused by trans-meridian (west–east, or east-west) air travel.  When traveling across a number of time zones, your body’s natural pattern is upset as the cycles that govern times for sleeping, eating, and body temperature regulation no longer correspond to your environment.  To the extent that your body cannot immediately realign these rhythms, you are “jet lagged.”  Symptoms can either aggravate anxiety, or be mistaken for intensified side effects of medications.  Some of the most common jet lag symptoms include:

  • Ÿ         Headache and irritability;
  • Ÿ         Balance and coordination problems;
  • Ÿ         Difficulty concentrating;
  • Ÿ         Early awakening (if flying west) or trouble falling asleep (if flying east); and
  • Ÿ         Interrupted sleep (to say the least).

Jet lag usually occurs with a change of three time zones or more, and the extent to which you’re affected depends on the number of time zones crossed.  If you’re unfamiliar with jet lag (or just want to explain it as painlessly as possible to your great-aunt), it’s worth noting that the maximum possible disruption is plus or minus twelve hours.  If the time difference between two locations is greater than twelve hours, subtract that number from 24 to understand the “adjusted” time zone difference.  New Zealand, for example, being nineteen hours ahead of Pacific Standard Time, would pose only a five-hour jet lag challenge to a traveler from California.

The recovery time for jet leg is generally one day per time zone crossed, although many people (particularly those who travel more) are able to recover faster.  Women are affected by jet lag more than men, since normal nighttime and daytime body rhythms are connected to estrogen levels.  Recovery will also depend on whether your flight(s) are overnight or scheduled during the day.  You’ll typically experience more jet lag if you begin a long flight mid-morning or early afternoon than if you take a “red eye” flight departing at eight p.m. or later (it helps, of course, if you can actually fall asleep on an airplane).

Unfortunately, there are no proven ways to avoid jet lag altogether.  You can talk to your general care practitioner about where specifically you’re going, and how to strategize flight times and sleep hours, to try to minimize the impacts.  Your doctor may suggest getting only a minimal amount of sleep the night before your flight (so that you’re naturally sleepy when you arrive at your destination) or taking a prescription-strength sleep medication for the first several nights of your trip.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

How will you feel after making this trip?!

by

An unexpected source of travel anxiety: overbooked flights!

Imagine you’re taking a major international flight.  You do the following things RIGHT:

1. Book and pay months ahead of time;

2. Show up at the airport hours before your departure for check-in; and

3. Be at your gate well before boarding time with your ticket and passport in hand…

And after all this, be told that you can’t get on the plane because the airline also sold your seat to someone else!!  Yes, it’s fairly common practice, especially during peak travel season, and it happened to me in Amsterdam with KLM Royal Dutch AIrlines while trying to fly home to SFO.

So what’s to do as you watch your plane roll away without you?  Have a nervous breakdown and wonder how long the airline will strand you at the airport?  Nope… here’s why.

1. The airline will rarely delay you for more than six-seven hours.  After talking with the overbooking “SOS Team” at the airport, it’s clear that they’ll only overbook flights they very frequently operate.  You either catch the next flight out, or you’re flown to a nearby city (in my case Paris) for a connecting flight home.

2. The airline will compensate you generously for your overbooking.  They don’t want to lose you as a future customer!  I wasn’t so stressed out when I heard I’d be compensated 600 Euros for the delay.

3. You now have more time to decompress, wherever you’re waiting.  The gate is now empty, you’re already checked through security, and those guilty-looking people up at the airline ticket counter will do just about anything to make you feel more comfortable.  Make a couple of quick calls home, count your money again, make sure you’re not behind on your dosing regimen, and go back into the terminal to shop and eat!