Jet Lag May Trigger Mental Illness Relapse

something else to consider:

http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/37/9/29

Clinical & Research News


Jet Lag May Trigger Mental Illness Relapse

Joan Arehart-Treichel

Taking long airplane flights may reactivate psychiatric illnesses, an Israeli study suggests.

Anybody who has experienced jet lag knows that it can be a real downer, leading to fatigue, grouchiness, or simply being out of sorts. But for persons with psychiatric illness, jet lag may pose an extra threat as well: reactivation of their mental illness.

This study finding comes from Gregory Katz, M.D., and colleagues of the Kfar Shaul Mental Health Center in Jerusalem, Israel, and is reported in the January-February issue of Comprehensive Psychiatry.

The Kfar Shaul Mental Health Center is unique in that nearly all international visitors to Jerusalem who experience psychiatric emergencies are sent there. Also, nearly all those visitors arrived in Israel by air. Thus Katz and his colleagues decided that their patient population was such that it would allow them to explore scientifically a question that has been scarcely probed up to now: Is there any link between jet lag and psychiatric illness?

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"The results of our study," they concluded in their study report, "indicate a connection between relapse of existing psychotic or affective disorders and jet lag."

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North/south flights, like between Ecuador and Florida, don't induce jet lag - a disruption of sleep cycles due to crossing time zones.

I had heard this mentioned somewhere and thought I'd check it out.
You are right though.

I Should have thought of that. :think:

of mental health issues. Any disruption of routine is -- travel being a complete disruption of routine.

So, to repeat a question I've raised on two other threads, why don't the airlines have a way to accomodate passengers dealing with this -- in the routine way they accomodate passengers with other kinds of challenges?

:shrug:

I am in a downright rage when travelling. I am an angry angry person, first the lines, then the lame pat down and removal of shoes. Add that to the unnatural act of flying ... I spend the first 15 minutes in air seriously talking to God. So then you do it all over for a connecting flight and you have 15 minutes to get to the other side of the airport. Feel crappy in the air, dehydrated. I hate it, and rarely, rarely fly.

Nowadays, I feel like I'm being loaded into a boxcar for shipment to a labor camp. It's dehumanizing.

back home and don't have to deal with a psychotic event that can last for days.

On the other hand, if we're not careful with our planning or let our awareness drop, my husband can become triggered to that degree. Keeping him balanced requires diligence from both of us. We have to plan for every contingency, up to and including where he will check in if he decompensates should we be away from home.

Sleep deprivation, according to the study, is also a factor.

is so much more important to our health than most people realize. It's not really something we can skimp on.

that sleep disruption aggravates any mental condition you are suffering with at the time.

It has happened to me. I traveled to Europe and had a relapse of clinical depression in a few days after that. Now I know why.

If sleep deprivation was the cause (rather than jet lag), then I am potentially in trouble. The Daily Show/Colbert Report... but they make me laugh, so who knows.

give me tranquilizers to help. It worked pretty well. I also used to read Oscar Wilde and listen to a tape of the same work w/ headphones. That helped, too. :silly:

they cut down on the air flow to the cabin to decrease drag on the airplane.(at least that is what I read) and the last time I flew I could barely function til I got off the plane. Plus the claustrophobia factor and the lack of space. I think it is remarkable that we don't have many more incidents. The airlines used to serve liquor and food to keep everyone calm and now they don't do much of that.

I used to have to fly fairly often for work, and the lines, inspections, and various delays and screwups stressed me majorly. I was always depressed and exhausted by the time I got home.

It sounds like it might be worthwhile to do some studies on how travel can affect a variety of mental health conditions, so that people can be prepared and find ways of dealing with their issues. (Especially since air travel continues to get worse, not better.)