Jetlag – a Traveller’s Lament
I have travelled quite a bit over the last few years, and sometimes my schedule has been pretty gruelling, changing timezones every week or so as I have gone from country to country teaching qigong. Often when I talk to another traveller about places I have been, or un upcoming trip with a 30 hour transit, I get asked ‘So how do you cope with jetlag?’ And my answer is always simply that I don’t get jetlag. Years of qigong practice have given me the ability to adapt quickly to whatever new timezone I find myself in, sleep when I need to sleep and be awake when I need to be awake. This answer often piques their curiosity, as no-one enjoys jetlag, and many people suffer from it. So, I though I would write this brief article about just how qigong can help you to beat jetlag, so that you too can rest well after your next journey.
Definition of Jetlag
First I think we need to define jetlag. If after already being awake for 12 hours, you travel for 30 hours, get very little sleep in transit, then arrive at your destination in the morning of the new time zone and have to stay away until evening, you may end up spending 50 or 55 hours awake with only a few hours sleep in an uncomfortable plane seat. This will make you tired, and you will probably need to catch up on at least some of that sleep. That is not jetlag, that is just being tired from lack of sleep. I manage to cope pretty well with such situations. Qigong really does make you more resilient to all sort of challenges and situations in life, but I am not superman, I still get tired when I don’t have enough sleep, and need to catch up.
Jetlag on the other hand is when you arrive, often tired from your flight. It gets to night time and you can’t sleep. Or you sleep for a little while and then wake up. Then during the day you want to sleep, but you have things to do. And then at night you can’t sleep again. So it becomes very difficult to catch up on your sleep, and you continue feeling tired for days, and just not quite ‘right’. This is what you can beat or avoid with qigong. You may still need to catch up on your sleep from travelling, but you can quickly adapt your body and energy to the time zone you arrive in, so that you are comfortable and able to sleep at the right time, and be awake at the right time easily.
So What Causes Jetlag?
Whether we are aware of it or not, our body has natural rhythms that coincide with the rhythms of the natural environment around us. In fact for a lot of people jetlag is on of the main things that makes them aware of these rhythms and that they can be thrown out of balance. One significant aspect of these rhythms is when we are awake, and when we go to sleep, but they are also much more complex than that. These rhythms also affect our secretion of hormones, when our digestion is ready to eat – or not, and so on. A lot of these rhythms are guided by the rising and setting of the sun, as this sets the pattern of when we do different things during the day. Basically our body has habits. It prepares itself to do things like eating or sleeping at a certain time, because that is what it is used to. When you switch to a new time zone, your body still acts like it is in the old time zone. It secretes hormones, prepares digestive enzymes and so on, on the old schedule, which doesn’t fit with your new location. If you are lucky after awhile it will figure out the rhythm of the new location and click over to the new routine. If you are unlucky it will just get confused and not know what to do, leaving you feeling bleh for days.
How Qigong Can Help With Jetlag
Not fun. But qigong can help! In a previous article I went into some detail about how the natural daily rhythm affects the activity of the organs, each going through periods of peak activity at different times of the day (you can read that article here). As the organs become active, it also increases the level of energy in the related meridian as well. When you travel to a new time zone, often the energy from your organ activity doesn’t match – causing this confusion in your bodies systems and in your sleep and wakefulness. If you can readjust the flow of energy in your meridians, so they are all unblocked and the peak energy matches the energy of the time at your new location, your body will naturally harmonize with your environment. It will naturally know what to do at the right time as the energy flows from one meridian to the next, and you will have no jetlag!
Twelve Rivers is a set of qigong exercises from Long White Cloud Qigong that stimulates each of the organs and meridians in order. When you practice this in accordance with the time of day, it automatically helps your body to self regulate its functions so be in harmony with the rhythm of the day and night. By stimulating the meridians one by one in order, the exercises send a tide of energy through your bodies energy systems, clearing blockages. If you start with the exercise for the organ that should be most active at the time of day at your new location, go through the whole set of exercises and then end again with the exercise for that time of day, your peak organ meridian activity will now be harmonized with your environment. The following meridians will also be unblocked so the energy can move easily to the next meridian, and the next one after that at the appropriate time. As the energy flows through the meridians, it naturally makes the related organs more active at that time, kicking in your natural instinct to eat and to sleep at the natural times.
So… if you practice Twelve Rivers Qigong regularly, you will become skilled at regulating the flow of energy in your organ meridians, and you can use this as a tool to quickly adapt to a new time zone whenever you travel! It sure does make those cross globe trips easier… You can find information about the Twelve Rivers qigong exercises on the Long White Cloud Qigong website here.
In addition to this there are other practices and techniques within qigong that can help to combat jetlag. One of these involves stimulating the energy in the meridians even more directly. This technique also has other uses and benefits, and will be taught as part of the upcoming Introduction to Qigong Healing course. So look out for that on the website, or subscribe to our newsletter below to receive updates on when that will be available.