Of all the problems that can plague the performance of active people, jet lag may be the least appreciated.
Disruptions in the body’s sleep-wake cycle have been recognized for years as an issue in professional and college sports: Las Vegas bookies are said to base some bets on their conviction that teams flying from the West Coast to the East Coast lose more often than those going in the opposite direction.
But travel-related sleep deprivation, like other problems that keep millions of Americans from getting sufficient shut-eye, can affect recreational athletes as well.
“A marathon typically starts early in the morning, so if the one in New York starts at 7 a.m. and you’re from California or Colorado, you’ll be at the starting line at your equivalent of 4 or 5 a.m.,” says Dr. James Pagel, a Colorado researcher who chairs the education committee of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.
And you probably will be groggy even if you have flown in the day before the event, he adds, because it normally takes about seven days for the body’s circadian rhythm to reset itself naturally.
In short, your sleeping and waking schedule – partly a function of a drop in body temperature after dark – doesn’t automatically change as you cross into another time zone. You may be able to speed up the resetting process by taking melatonin, a neurohormone available at health food stores, at the time you want to change your bedtime.
“But it’s hard to get to sleep two or three hours earlier, so it’s still not a magic pill,” he says. “And as you get older, it becomes more difficult to adjust to time-zone problems. All sleep disturbances seem to get worse as you get older.”
Pagel, director of a sleep disorders lab at Parkview Medical Center in Pueblo, says another under-appreciated cause of sleep deprivation is caffeine.
“One thing to be aware of is that caffeine has a 6 1/2-hour half-life,” he notes. “It’s still active up to 10 hours after you drink it, and a lot of energy drinks have huge amounts of it.”
The lesson here is that if you have a Starbucks or a SoBe in the afternoon, you may have trouble getting your ZZs at night.
“If you have any degree of insomnia, this can get you into a vicious cycle, where you’re drinking coffee to wake up, then can’t get to sleep when you need to,” Pagel says.
And exercising in hopes of reaching a point of exhaustion can be counterproductive.
“I’ve got patients with chronic insomnia, including some marathon runners. They think if they just run enough they can’t help but get tired enough to sleep. But they’re basically hyper-aroused, and they just cannot turn their systems off,” Pagel says.
“I find that even a late-evening yoga class can make it difficult to go to sleep. The objective is to turn your mind off, and there are many things that affect that. What they say is that two hours before bedtime should be the cutoff point for exercise.”
In general, experts say, a good night’s sleep serves as a restorative respite, as crucial to good health and fitness as diet and exercise.
“Lack of sleep affects your cognitive abilities, your emotions and your overall health in many ways,” says Beth Bidwell, manager of a sleep disorders clinic at Exempla Lutheran Medical Center in Wheat Ridge.
Sleep deprivation has been linked to depression, accidents, memory problems and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. It also is a factor in diabetes and obesity, although the connections are not yet well understood.
As Pagel explains it, lack of sleep can lower your body’s sensitivity to insulin and may affect the production of hormones that trigger a sense of satiety, so that “you may not feel satisfied after eating.”
Sleep problems also interfere with people’s concentration. A study Pagel published in the February edition of the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine found that middle and high school students who had restless leg syndrome or trouble with sleepiness every day got poorer grades.
Among the many causes of sleeplessness, modern life looms large with its high level of stress, irregular work shifts and long hours of exposure to artificial light.
“A hundred years ago, we slept an average of 10 hours a night. Today we all sleep 7 1/2 hours max, which is a new thing,” Pagel says. “Insomnia is incredibly common. It’s the new ‘pain.”‘
Staff writer Jack Cox can be reached at 303-954-1785 or jcox@denverpost.com.
