Jet Lag Pills - Panacea or Placebo Effect?

Whatever method you utilize for either preventing or curing jet lag, and there are various ways of achieving this, the outcome should be a realignment of your body clock compared to that of local time, if the outward symptoms of jet lag are to disappear. So can this be performed with a straightforward pill?

One of the very most trusted pills on the market is really a homeopathic preparation containing specific things like extracts from the chamomile plant and a standard type of daisy. Now while homeopathic remedies have an extended and more developed history, even though chamomile itself is well known because of its properties in assisting sleep, it appears greater than a little far fetched to claim that going for a pill before you remove will fast forward your system clock some six hours during your flight from London to Singapore.

So why achieve this lots of people swear by such pills? You can find probably four reasons:

First, we have been conditioned to trust that the advance of science is in a way that doctors could cure almost anything today therefore why shouldn't we have confidence in a pill to cure jet lag.

Second, different drug trials have demonstrated again and again the energy of the "placebo effect". Put simply, the mere proven fact that something has been done to combat a disorder can alone produce the felling that it works.

Third, jet lag doesn't always activate straight away. We are all familiar with the truth that several late nights doesn't always effect us right away and that it could be several days before our late nights meet up with us. Because many travelers also feel fine because of their first few days they assume that the pills will need to have worked. When jet lag does meet up with them, then they often wrongly attribute their symptoms to the change in climate or something they've eaten.

Fourth, the sale of pills, of any description, is big businesses supported by big advertising budgets and clever marketing. This marketing reaches jet lag pills and is even supported by studies which clearly demonstrate the potency of such pills. The only real problem here's that lots of of the studies quoted are fundamentally flawed and lack any detail. Most studies, for instance, involve airline crews, specifically cabin staff, that are hardly representative of the majority of the traveling public and may well be considered to have a vested fascination with promoting flights.

It will be lovely if we're able to simply take a pill whenever we board the aircraft and reach our destination without jet lag. Unfortunately, at the very least for the present time, this simply isn't possible.

Preventing jet lag, or at the very least reducing jet lag symptoms considerably, isn't difficult and involves a small amount of planning before your trip and carrying out a careful, but simple, plan before, after and during your flight. The thing is doesn't involve is really a so-called magic jet lag pill.