Not eating for 12-16 hours can help people quickly reset their sleep-wake cycle, according to a study from the Harvard Medical School. This discovery can drastically improve a person's ability to cope with jet lag or adjust to working late shifts.
Scientists have long known that our circadian rhythm is regulated by our exposure to light. Now they have found a second "food clock" that takes over when we are hungry. This mechanism probably evolved to make sure starving mammals don't go to sleep when they should be foraging for food.
The lead researcher Clifford Saper explains:
The neat thing about this second clock is that it can override the main clock ... and you should just flip into that new time zone in one day.
It usually takes people a week to fully adjust to a new time zone or sleeping schedule. To think that this new "food clock" hack can help you change your internal clock in one day is mind boggling. How Do You Use This Trick?
Simply stop eating during the 12-16 hour period before you want to be awake. Once you start eating again, your internal clock will be reset as though it is the start of a new day. Your body will consider the time you break your fast as your new "morning."
For example, if you want to start waking up at 2:00 am, you should start fasting between 10:00 am or 2:00 pm the previous day, and don't break your fast until you wake up at 2:00 am. Make sure you eat a nice healthy meal to jumpstart your system.
Another example: If you are travelling from Los Angeles to Tokyo, figure out when breakfast is served in Tokyo, and don't eat for the 12-16 hours before Tokyo's breakfast time.
What is funny is that if you have a really long flight, and you do not eat during it because of this, you may have a worse time at customs. On higher-risk drug routes people that don't eat are noted by airline staff as potential internal drug carriers.
Well if you're going to the states/canada from china or korea, the flight itself should be around that length. So just skip the airplane food, it's not like they are any good anyway.
On August 04 2009 12:33 Manifesto7 wrote: Please don't use tl:dr on TL.
What is funny is that if you have a really long flight, and you do not eat during it because of this, you may have a worse time at customs. On higher-risk drug routes people that don't eat are noted by airline staff as potential internal drug carriers.
On August 04 2009 12:33 Manifesto7 wrote: Please don't use tl:dr on TL.
What is funny is that if you have a really long flight, and you do not eat during it because of this, you may have a worse time at customs. On higher-risk drug routes people that don't eat are noted by airline staff as potential internal drug carriers.
what does tl;dr mean?
Too long; didn't read, using it may lead to a temp ban, use at your own risk
On August 04 2009 12:37 AssuredVacancy wrote: Well if you're going to the states/canada from china or korea, the flight itself should be around that length. So just skip the airplane food, it's not like they are any good anyway.
Depends when you land really. If your flight arrives at 8pm and you want to wake up at 8am, then eating on the plane is fine, eating after you land is not.
lol interesting find but i prefer just toughing it out like a man and forcing yourself to eat meals/sleep etc etc at normal times. exercise a lot during the day. Drink lots of caffeine if you have to make it through the day.
Normally I can overcome jetlag from US to china in 1-2 days so why bother to not eat
Pretty sure there is a sexual drive clock to the circadian rhythm also. like some people are morning fucks and others are night. Also I'm sure I'm not the only one who gets a bit of energy upon masturbation/sex and then others also get tired from it.
PS- if I am understanding this correctly they say not to eat until you want to be awake? For me whenever I eat I generally get really tired afterwords. But then again I've always noticed eating habits contributing to my late nights. Binge drinking and fast food runs, you're not supposed to eat after 9pm for a reason right?
Personally, i've found melatonin a quick sleep aid for dealing with jet lag. Knocks me out in about 15 minutes, feel completely rested when i wake up. Only side effect is I tend to wake up once after about four hours, and have to take another tablet.
If you're headed east (ie awake when you need to be sleeping), pop it when you're ready for bed.
If you're headed west and know you're going to tired when you want to be awake, try sleeping on the plane. Drink a fair amount of water before you go to bed since you tend to get dehydrated on planes.
On August 04 2009 12:33 Manifesto7 wrote: Please don't use tl:dr on TL.
What is funny is that if you have a really long flight, and you do not eat during it because of this, you may have a worse time at customs. On higher-risk drug routes people that don't eat are noted by airline staff as potential internal drug carriers.
what does tl;dr mean?
And this was very useful in the sense that a bunch of my friends are getting back from across the world.
Intentionally starve myself? Uh...no thanks. I just go outside and soak up some rays after a small cup of coffee. That usually wakes me up enough to get me through the day~
I think I would probably be pretty hungry after 16h of fasting. Which means I would eat a huge meal at the end of it... and end up feeling all drowzy from eating so much. Dunno, anyways since I live in a GMT+1 timezone I rarely travel more than + or - 6 time zones.
There's another way that involves limiting the amount of light coming in (using sun glasses) and only sleeping at certain times. It actually works, but there's a different schedule you have to follow for each trip, depending on whether you're going forward or backward X amount of hours.
I don't know where to find the information online though.
Sounds really, good; I'd be willing to starve myself for 14 hours if this actually helps avoiding jetlag. I won't be able to test this very soon though, since I almost never travel to timezones that vary more than one or two hours from mine o_o And the next overseas trip is not going to take place in the near future.
On August 04 2009 12:37 AssuredVacancy wrote: Well if you're going to the states/canada from china or korea, the flight itself should be around that length. So just skip the airplane food, it's not like they are any good anyway.
Actually the airline food is probably pretty decent, with a stronger taste than normal food, but in a pressurized cabin your tastebuds don't work as they normally do.
why starve yourself? if u land in the morning stay up all night before your flight so u sleep the whole way. if you land at night then stay awake during the trip so u fall asleep. (did Harvard not use some common sense before this study?? jks)
Alright boys, here's the scientific results of the scientific study I scientifically conducted in my home.
I've been sleeping at unconventional and somewhat random hours because I'm a college student on summer break who doesn't care when he wakes up. For about the last week I haven't been going to bed before 5AM. Generally it takes me about a week to get to waking at 5AM by staying up progressively later, first 7, then 10, then 14:00, then 13, then 14, then 17, then 20. Or something like that. I decided to give this a try.
I fasted from dinner Tuesday until 6am Weds morning. The article didn't mention anything about doing anything but fasting, so I slept from 11PM-3AM because I was tired. I slept again that morning from noon till 6PM, but when I awoke I found myself feeling much less rested than usual. Last night I went to bed around 10PM and I woke up at 5 this morning. I had a relatively short fast (12 hours), so maybe more accurate results could be had with the longer one, but this seems like a great success for me. 36 hours from first fast till fixed clock is pretty incredible.
Some of you may be like, lol mannerman it takes you a week to stay up all night, I just stay up for really long one day!! That's fine, but I would needs loads of caffeine to do that, and that doesn't give me anything like a regular sleep pattern even after I wake up at a normal time, I still feel drowsy the next day and am susceptible to naps which will just ruin it straight off the bat. I feel fantastic waking up this morning, I have normal amounts of energy and I feel like I'll be waking up at good times for the foreseeable future.
Final notes: I did drink water during my fast. I felt really weird all day after the fast was broken, like something was off. It worked.
I've never understood the concept of jetlag I'm always tired, no matter the cirumstance Also I've gone several days without eating before. After a while you just feel really weak... the only real bad part was the headache. The people who can't go 16 hours without food probably also have postings in the fitness thread -.-
I tried this when I started working the overnight shift again and it helped in readjusting. Definitely recommend it. Then again, it could be I'm used to doing it since I have to readjust twice a year when I go back there.
Not eating seems pretty shitty...and I can usually lose at least 1 night's sleep or a large majority of it without feeling too tired the next day, so that's my favorite strategy. I just stay up all night or most of it then go to sleep normal time or a bit earlier the next night, and i'm good.
I've found that wearing sunglasses everywhere (indoors + outdoors) a couple days before your flight helps as well. The helps to reduce the sun's circadian rhythm regulating properties.
On August 06 2009 20:13 Ace wrote: is jetlag really that bad? I've never had it but I thought you're just tired?
think about lag.... what does it mean? It literally means you fall behind everyone else.
That is, when they're going to sleep you're still awake, when they're awake you're going to sleep etc. etc. So you "fall behind" the "normal" sleeping pattern of where you're staying.
Jetlag is awful coz you'll step off a plane and then for a whole week you're watching night television coz you can't fall asleep. Then when everyone's keen to do things in the morning you're going to bed. This is the extreme case but, that's what "jetlag" is. The sleeping pattern difference caused by change of timezone.
EDIT:
For my own story, I actually kept eating! I was flying from Sydney to Chicago (stopping over in SF) and the flight boarded at 6pm-ish. So I ate all day (breakfast, lunch and dinner in Sydney), boarded the plane and did the same (19 hr direct flight to SF), got off at SF, had McDonalds, boarded the plane to Chicago, ate on that plane, got off, ate at my cousin's place when I got there... what did all this result in? In the longest most epic single-piece sh*t I've ever had. I think I shat the entire length of my colon. Try it sometime, or not. Think about it this way, HOWWWWWW SATISFYING IS THAT SH*T GONNA BE!!!!!??? I tell you what, the feeling alone was worth it!
a lot of students who have bad sleeping habits, like, sleeping 12 hours straight on a saturday and then eating lunch at 3pm will fuck up their carcadian rythm for this reason.
so be careful when you sleep 12 hours and then want to eat something.
EPT
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