Have you ever wondered what causes jet lag and whether a strategy such as intermittent fasting could help ease your jet lag symptoms? If you’ve been packing your suitcase and shopping for appetite suppressant mints, knowing how fasting could potentially help soothe your jet lag symptoms could prove useful on your upcoming trip. 

Although jet lag may be a natural byproduct of traveling, you can help control the symptoms by cleverly using an intermittent fasting strategy to help adjust your internal circadian clock to your new time zone. Here’s what you should know about the most common causes of jet lag and what fasting can do to make your travel go a little more smoothly.

If you’ve ever experienced jet lag before, you may be wondering what causes this frustrating phenomenon to begin with. The short answer is that when you fly across different time zones, your body suddenly has to adjust to a different schedule. This can throw off your internal clock and cause disruptions in your circadian rhythm. In fact, the connection between fasting and jet lag is precisely that fasting, if done right, could help you naturally adjust your internal clock. In most cases, lack of fasting or other precautions could lead to irritating jet lag symptoms. This jet lag is typically associated with:

• Exhaustion from long periods of traveling

• An out-of-sync internal circadian clock

• Too little sleep or too much poor-quality and irregular sleep

• Disorientation in a new time zone

• Stress due to travel

If you’ve already tried intermittent fasting for better sleep, you may be excited to learn that fasting could also help relieve common jet lag symptoms. That’s because your eating schedule helps dictate your circadian rhythm, making fasting an easy way to adjust your body to your time zone during travels. If you’re considering trying out fasting during your next trip, remember that:

• Eating on a fasting schedule could help you adjust your internal clock

• You could help modify your appetite for your new time zone and give yourself a boost of energy

• You can avoid having an upset circadian rhythm upon arrival at your destination

• It could help you get into better health and even boost your immune system prior to your arrival

• It could help ease other symptoms of jet lag, such as headaches, nausea, fatigue, difficulty concentrating, mood swings or a general feeling of malaise

The next time you plan to embark on travel that involves crossing time zones, you may want to prepare your internal clock using intermittent fasting. Strategic fasting can potentially help you reset your circadian rhythm to help you adjust better to the new time zone while also helping to mitigate common jet lag symptoms such as headaches and nausea. Whether you’ve already tried intermittent fasting for health reasons in the past or not, using it to soothe your jet lag symptoms could potentially prove an effective and worthwhile strategy. Try it out the next time you board a plane.