Getting enough sleep regularly can be tough — and even harder when you're traveling for the holidays. "We need sleep like we need water," says Jade Wu, a behavioral sleep medicine psychologist and author of the book Hello Sleep. She and host Regina G. Barber discuss what's happening to our bodies when we get jet lag and the clocks in our body get out of whack. They also get into the science of the circadian rhythm and how to prepare for a long flight across time zones. Check out CDC's website for tips on minimizing jet lag.Want to hear more science of holiday living? Email us your ideas to [email protected] — we'd love to hear from you! Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
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You're listening to Shortwave from NPR. Hey, Shortwavers. The holidays are approaching, and that often means lots of travel. across the country or internationally, which often just like knocks me out. But that exhaustion can happen even if you're not traveling.
I stayed in exactly my house, but I had a baby, which means that my schedule got topsy-turvy, turned all the way around. And it felt like I had jet lag, even though I didn't go anywhere.
That's Jade Wu, a behavioral sleep medicine psychologist and the author of the book Hello Sleep. And I called her up because I, and I suspect many of you short wavers, are about to put our bodies through that exhaustion again. In a few weeks, my partner and I are going to Australia and New Zealand, which has basically the opposite day and night cycle from here in D.C.
So we're going to be extremely jet-lagged.
Jet-lag is when your body very quickly changes time zones so that your internal body clock becomes mismatched with the outside environment.
Our bodies have billions of clocks. They're in our cells, our organs, our brains. And they make up our circadian rhythm.
The circadian system should work like a symphony that plays in sync together and on time. If all our clocks run as they should and together in sync, then our circadian rhythms are doing great.
And so that's why when we get jet lagged or, you know, have a baby and your whole schedule goes topsy turvy, what happens is that your internal circadian rhythms, your internal clocks start to not play in sync with each other or start to shift. and they no longer match the day-night cycle that's actually in your environment.
So that symphony is making very distressing music.
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