It is every one’s experience that flying East is worse than flying West. When you fly westward for a long period, you may feel tired and weary from a long flight but the next day you may get over your jet lag easily. But at the same time if you fly eastwardin a long flight, it may take a week or so to get back to your normal. While seasoned travelers know that flying eastward (say, from New York to Chennai,India.) is much harder to recover from than the same flight in the opposite direction, we now know a little more about why this is the case.
Because flying West adds hours to the day, we give our bodies the extra time they naturally need to sync up with a circadian cycle, making the adjustment period smoother.Flying east, on the other hand, eats up hours, and forces our circadian rhythms to be cut even further.
The human body responds better to having the day stretched rather than compressed. Going east to west, it’s kind of like just having a very late night out and you can cope with that better. But going the other way, you have a compressed day and that really screws up your system. Because advancing your body clock is harder than delaying it.
There’s no magic cure to adjusting to your new alarm clock. Travel experts recommend exposing your body to natural light, staying hydrated, and flying during the daytime, which can all combat the effects of jet lag.
