Secreted naturally at the fall of darkness, melatonin prepares the body for a “sleep phase” that ends with the return of light. But as every traveler knows, shifting that phase takes time. Fly east from L.A. to New York, and when the clock in Times Square says it’s mid-night–time to sleep if you have to rise early–your body will swear it’s only 9. To ease that conflict, Dr. Al Lewy of the Oregon Health Sciences University suggests starting a melatonin regimen a day or two before leaving the WestCoast. Rather than taking a sleep-inducing dose of two to five milligrams and heading to bed early, he recommends popping a tiny (0.5 mg) dose in the middle of the afternoon and getting on with the day.
The point is not to knock yourself out, he says, but to simulate an earlier sunset and let your body respond accordingly. To prepare for an east-to-west flight, he would take the same small dose in the morning, in effect delaying the dawn.
When you’re crossing nine or 1O time zones, it can be hard to tell whether you need an earlier sleep phase or a later one, let alone figure out how to move in the right direction. Dr. Ray Sahelian, a family practitioner in Los Angeles, suggests simply waiting until you reach your destination, then taking melatonin around bedtime- one milligram for every time zone you’ve crossed, up to 10 or 12 mg. Either system can help, for melatonin works as a soporific as well as a timekeeper. But Sahelian’s doesn’t require a calculator.
