Most frequent flyers have a few tricks up their sleeve to help them avoid jet lag. The most common ones include exercising as soon as you get off the plane; skipping meals on the flight; and skipping alcohol. Qantas, the world’s 11th largest airline, has come up with some of its best tips for resetting your body clock while traveling.
The airline has just published a multi-year study on how to change in-flight habits to reduce jet lag. The study found that adjusting lighting, getting enough sleep, and eating schedules and meals with specific ingredients can significantly improve fatigue. Foods that were recommended as particularly helpful include chili peppers and chocolate.
Chili and chocolate help reduce jet lag
For this study, Qantas Airlines collected data from a nonstop test flight from New York to Sydney (a 22-hour flight). On the experimental flight, 23 passengers volunteered to wear biometric tracking devices and record how they felt in the week before the flight, during the flight, and for two weeks after the flight.
According to the results just announced, volunteers who had a schedule and ate the right food on the flight had better quality sleep. At the same time, fatigue due to “jet lag” was also reduced significantly upon arrival and had better work performance and experience in the two days after the flight.
A key component of the revised schedule is to time in-flight meals to match the body’s internal clock and serve foods that promote the brain’s production of tryptophan, an amino acid linked to sleepiness. These include easy-to-digest fish and chicken dishes, soups with chili peppers for fast-acting carbohydrates, and dairy desserts like chocolate.
Qantas is designing the Airbus A350 to operate ultra-long-haul flights.
Other useful features include custom cabin lighting schedules designed to help passengers adapt to their destination time zone, as well as cross-border travel. In fact, Qantas is designing its Airbus A350s for its ultra-long-haul flights to have a dedicated wellness area where economy passengers can do stretches and other exercises guided by video screens, accompanied by a healthy snack.
“This project is a very multidisciplinary team of more than 10 researchers from medicine, science and engineering, including sleep researchers, circadian experts, nutritionists and exercise specialists. No airline has ever done this type of research before. The initial findings give us optimism that we can make a real difference to the health and wellbeing of international travellers,” said Peter Cistulli, Professor of Sleep Medicine at the University of Sydney, who has supported the airline.
The airline also said it is conducting parallel studies on crew health on ultra-long-haul flights, but it has yet to release the results of those studies. While the length of the upcoming direct flights may seem daunting, Qantas said the new routes will shave three hours off total travel time compared to journeys with stops.
