Executive Travel. : Software Offers Customized Jet Lag Advice

In this era of global competition, travel may be a necessary cost of doing business, but jet lag--the personal toll people pay for international travel--is one cost that can be contained.

Recent research combined with computer technology has put new jet lag remedies as close as the nearest personal computer.

New software programs create custom schedules for travelers, detailing the best times to eat, sleep and expose themselves to light to reduce the effects of jet lag. And now that most travel agencies use personal computers to run their reservations software, two services--reservations and a schedule to reduce jet lag--can be combined in one place.

Out of Sync

Jet lag is a series of symptoms the body experiences when its biological clock is out of sync with the environment. When you cross a time zone, the cyclical processes that make your body run smoothly are disrupted, a phenomenon that chronobiologist Charles Ehret, author of the book “Overcoming Jet Lag,” describes as cellular chaos.

Not everyone experiences jet lag to the same degree. Some people find they adjust fine on their own. Research suggests, however, that about 75% of people experience significant jet lag when they cross more than four time zones.

At its worst, jet lag can make people so sick with exhaustion, stomach disorders, headaches, impaired reflexes and decreased concentration that they can hardly function, let alone conduct important business. At the very least, it’s a nuisance that can impair judgment and affect decision making. In either case, improper attention to the effects of jet lag can cost a company money in poor performance.

The Old Remedies

Cures for jet lag range from the imaginative to the impractical. Some people swear that just resetting their watches in flight, taking a pool dip at their destination or eating certain foods is sufficient to trick the body into cooperating. Others go to the business destination early and give themselves a few days to adjust before an important event. Still others try shifting their daily schedule to simulate their destination time zone a few days in advance.

A New Approach

For several years, physiologists have been trying to come up with a better way to reset the biological clock through light, diet and social cues. Using various combinations of feasting and fasting, turning lights on and off and altering sleep patterns can essentially tune the body to its new regimen.

Although this approach has been successful, it is also confusing. The hundreds of different combinations of arrival and departure times can defeat even the most devoted students of jet lag.

High-Tech Twist

Now, however, a growing number of time zone entrepreneurs are offering computerized solutions to the headache of trying to defeat jet lag. There are at least three already on the market.

Management Consulting International Co. in Corona del Mar markets a program called TimeZone directly to travelers for about $69. The program runs on IBM-compatible systems. You tell the computer when ad where you are going and when you will arrive. It tells you when to eat and sleep, when to expose yourself to sunlight, room light and darkness and what types of meals--light or heavy, protein-based or carbohydrate--to eat.

TimeZone also offers a database that rates airline flights for difficulty of time zone adjustment. For example, a morning flight from Los Angeles to Paris rates a 10 (the highest rating indicating a relatively easy jet lag adjustment), whereas the night flight rates a negative 6.

Lower-rated flights compound jet lag problems by keeping you awake when you should sleep or serving meals at the wrong time, said Management Consulting President Alan Cameron. For those who don’t want to purchase the software, the company will devise custom schedules for $9.95. For more information, call (714) 675-9599.

Bill Ashton of Jet-Ready Travel Services in Woodside, Calif., has a slightly different approach. He sells his software by subscription to travel agents and corporate travel offices, which in turn use it to provide personal itineraries to clients along with their tickets. Jet-Ready develops an optimum schedule for “core sleep” and then prescribes a routine around it. The program will take personal schedule preferences (such as preferred wake-up time) and meeting schedules into account before making its recommendations. A typical Jet-Ready itinerary costs about $25 through a travel agent. For more information, call (415) 851-4484. Still another program, “Midnight Sun,” is available to corporate travel services through Circadian Travel Technologies in Bethesda, Md., run by Martin Moore-Ede, a professor of physiology at Harvard Medical School and director of the Institute for Circadian Physiology.

If light falls on your eyes during the first half of your sleep period, it resets your time clock westward (toward Hawaii time,) Moore-Ede said. If it falls on your eyes during the second half, you get reset eastward toward European time. Therefore, it is critical to know when to expose yourself to light as well as when to avoid it.

Although the program is not available to individuals, Circadian Travel will devise a trip schedule for about $28. For more information, call (301) 961-8559.