Can melatonin reduce let lag?
If flying eastward, you need to go to sleep earlier and get up earlier. If flying westward, you need to stay up later and sleep later. For the first few days after crossing multiple time zones, you are likely to be both sleepy during the day and restless at night. Taking melatonin at the right time may help jet travelers adapt faster. Timing is critical. If you take melatonin at the wrong time, your body clock may travel in the wrong direction. You might leave New York en route to Paris, for instance, but send your body clock to Honolulu. While timing, dosages, and length of use are still being worked out, reducing jet lag is the best-tested application for melatonin, and it may be among the safest, as low dosages are taken for only a few days. The plan below has been used in several studies without causing serious side effects. It assumes that the goal is to sleep during normal nighttime hours at the travel destination.
