Jet Lag: Causes, Symptoms, & Prevention Tips | How Does Jet Lag Affect Sleep? | BYJU'S

In this week’s video for ‘Now We Know’, we will discuss how Jet lag affects the biological clock of your body that works on the basis of light cues around you, and How does the pineal gland release melatonin?

Have you ever observed that you feel sleepy generally at night time? In fact, even when you try to sleep during the day, you usually need to draw the curtains and make the room sufficiently dark before you can fall off to sleep. Let’s understand what is happening inside the body which is related to the dimming of the light. Your eyes take the dimming of light as a cue and trigger a special part of the brain called the suprachiasmatic nucleus or SCN. Upon receiving this information, SCN activates two glands in the brain: the pineal gland and the pituitary gland. As soon as the pineal gland gets activated, it gets to work and releases a hormone called melatonin. This hormone is very well known as the sleep hormone. When you get sleepy, your breathing slows down, your energy lowers and you cannot concentrate. That happens because of the pituitary gland! As soon as the pineal gland releases melatonin, the functioning of the pituitary gland gets affected too. It starts releasing some hormones which inhibit the functions of glands like the thyroid, adrenal, and pancreatic glands. In turn, slowing down our metabolism, heart rate, blood pressure, digestion, and other vital physical functions. Both of these glands together make the body ready for sleep. After a good night’s rest, when the sun rises, the same glands are at play. But, this time, instead of releasing the said hormones, their release is inhibited. And you start to wake up! This 24-hour sleep and wake cycle that the body follows naturally is called the circadian rhythm. And even though the brain produces melatonin to get you ready for sleep, it is the circadian rhythm that controls your routine. Along with deciding when you wake up and fall asleep, it also decides your meal timings, bowel movements, and a lot more. And the circadian rhythm gets disturbed due to jetlag. Let’s talk a little more about it. Let’s say it is 12 PM in India right now. It is the middle of the day. However, if you were in the USA right now, the time would be 1:30 AM. It would have been the middle of the night and you would have been sleeping. This is called a difference in time zones. Our circadian rhythm works best when it is aligned with the local time zone. However, when we change the timezone rapidly while traveling, the circadian rhythm fails to adapt to it immediately. For that reason, you’ll feel effects like disrupted sleep, fatigue, and digestive issues. This is called jetlag. So, your body receives the cue for dim light when it is not used to and starts producing melatonin. But, your circadian rhythm is misaligned due to changed time zones and hence you are not able to sleep. But don’t worry. Your body does get used to the new cycle even though it might take a few days. This is how the circadian rhythm gets disturbed even when you stay up late at night! Well if you did not know how jet lag affects sleep, now you know!
Stay until the end of the video so you do not miss out on all this interesting information.

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[byjusclasses]

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[sharma]

Pituitary gland controls all the other by releasing hormones if it does not work well then functioning of other glands would also be disrupted

[meenakshilakshmanan]

as Pituitary gland is the master gland it controls the secretion of hormones in all the glands of our body it the pituitary gland malfunctions of our body will be disturbed

[drsushi]

2:40 Suprachimatic Nucleus is not NCS is SCN

[MayaAmeen-fikp]

If the pitituary gland gets affected, it would cause a decrease in growth.