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Health

Worrying about bad jet lag could actually make your jet lag worse

By Jason Arunn Murugesu

6 May 2021

Woman sleeping on a plane

Feeling tired?

vasa / Alamy

Worrying about jet lag could actually make it worse, so try to relax on your next long-haul flight.

Eva Winnebeck at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany, and her colleagues have looked at potential psychological causes of jet leg – the temporary impact of a long flight in which someone feels out of sync with the new time zone. They may struggle to sleep, feel tired and have trouble concentrating.

“In biology when we think about a topic, we often think about what we can measure – like a molecule or something,” Winnebeck says. “But a…

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