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Treatments and drugs
By Mayo Clinic staffJet lag usually doesn't require treatment. However, if you're a frequent traveler continually bothered by jet lag, your doctor may prescribe medications or light therapy.
Medications
- Nonbenzodiazepines, such as zolpidem (Ambien), eszopiclone (Lunesta) and zaleplon (Sonata)
- Benzodiazepines, such as triazolam (Halcion)
These medications may help you sleep during your flight and for several nights afterward. Side effects are uncommon, but may include nausea, vomiting, amnesia, sleepwalking, confusion and morning sleepiness. Although these medications appear to help sleep duration and quality, they may not lessen daytime symptoms of jet lag.
Light therapy
Your body's internal clock or circadian rhythms are influenced by exposure to sunlight, among other factors. When you travel across time zones, your body must adjust to a new daylight schedule and reset, allowing you to fall asleep and be awake at the appropriate times.
Light therapy can help ease that transition. It involves exposing your eyes to an artificial bright light or lamp that simulates sunlight for a specific and regular amount of time during the time when you're meant to be awake.
This may be useful, for example, if you're a business traveler and are often away from natural sunlight during the day in a new time zone. Light therapy comes in a variety of forms including a light box that sits on a table, a desk lamp that may blend in better in an office setting or a light visor that you wear on your head.
- Herxheimer A. Jet lag. http://www.uptodate.com/index. Accessed Oct. 24, 2012.
- Kolla BP, et al. Jet lag and shift work sleep disorders: How to help reset the internal clock. Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine. 2011;78:675.
- Morgenthaler TI, et al. Practice parameters for the clinical evaluation and treatment of circadian rhythm sleep disorders. Sleep. 2007;30:1445.
- Longo DL, et al. Harrison's Online. 18th ed. New York, N.Y.: The McGraw-Hill Companies; 2012. http://www.accessmedicine.com/resourceTOC.aspx?resourceID=4. Accessed Nov. 1, 2012.
- Jet lag. American Academy of Sleep Medicine. http://yoursleep.aasmnet.org/Disorder.aspx?id=9. Accessed Oct. 24, 2012.
- Sack RL. Jet lag. The New England Journal of Medicine. 2010;362:440.
- Auger RR, et al. Jet lag and other sleep disorders relevant to the traveler. Travel Medicine and Infectious Disease. 2009;7:60.
- Sleep disorders and CAM: At a glance. National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. http://nccam.nih.gov/health/sleep/ataglance.htm. Accessed Nov. 7, 2012.
- Morgenthaler TI (expert opinion). Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn. Nov. 30, 2012.
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