Travel and tiredness

So jet lag appears to be 'a misalignment' between our natural circadian rhythm, and the new time zone's time. Where once we had slow travel - as fast as we could walk, ride or sail - and we would adjust as we went. But now we cross the planet in a day, and we get out of step.

But other things contribute to getting more tired when we go on holiday. Travel is stressful: we have to constantly hurry up to make deadlines, then hang around doing nothing, getting bored or vagueing-out (Zhu et al., 2020). That two part thing is a kicker: stress, stress, stress to get to the airport on time; anxious to get through security screening; then bored as hell waiting at the gate. Cortizol all the way until we 'hurry up and wait' at the end (Mokhtarian et al., 2015). Additionally, there is the increased risk of Covid-19 (Freudendal-Pedersen & Kesselring, 2021). Washing stress hormones out of our body makes us tired. Waiting makes us tired. No wonder people can behave very badly when things go wrong at the airport!

What I find really interesting is that we get travel fatigue from travelling by air in our own country. That can arise from how confined and pressurised the cabin is, what changes in atmospheric pressure and the oxygen mix on the plane itself. Not moving for long periods slows our circulation, which not only makes us stiff, but drops our oxygenation levels (One Monroe Aerospace, 2020). The plane seats are not designed for sleep (Bissell, 2009). So the flight itself makes us tired. 

And when we get to our destination, often everything is strange, so we are hyper-alert - even if we are not stepping away from our own national culture. We may not know where to find food, toilets, water, or somewhere comfy to rest. We spend a lot of time waiting to travel at either end in fluorescently-lit, recycled air, indoor environments, which apparently desynchronise our body's hormone and temperature regulation processes. Our sleep cycles get disturbed both during travel and when we reach our destination (Mokhtarian et al., 2015; Zhu et al., 2020).

And then we fly home, and experience it all again - hurry up and wait, screening, the confinement, the changes in cabin and atmospheric pressure, changes in oxygenation - and no wonder we are knackered when we get home.

Sam

References:

Bissell, D. (2009). Travelling vulnerabilities: mobile timespaces of quiescence. Cultural Geographies, 16(4), 427-445. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474474009340086

Freudendal-Pedersen, M., & Kesselring, S. (2021). What is the urban without physical mobilities? COVID-19-induced immobility in the mobile risk society. Mobilities, 16(1), 81-95. https://doi.org/10.1080/17450101.2020.1846436

Mokhtarian, P. L., Papon, F., Goulard, M., & Diana, M. (2015). What makes travel pleasant and/or tiring? An investigation based on the French National Travel Survey. Transportation, 42, 1103-1128. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11116-014-9557-y

One Monroe Aerospace. (2020). Do You Get Sleepy When Flying? There’s a Scientific Reason For It. https://monroeaerospace.com/blog/do-you-get-sleepy-when-flying-theres-a-scientific-reason-for-it

Zhu, M., Gao, J., Zhang, L., & Jin, S. (2020). Exploring tourists’ stress and coping strategies in leisure travel. Tourism Management, 81, 104167, 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2020.104167