MISCELLANEOUS Causes of headaches: The Body Clock
The body has its own natural rhythms and when these get out of synchronisation we can feel particularly unwell. When there is conflict between the body's internal clock and the external time by the sun, you can feel quite ill. This is the basis of jet-lag: your internal bodily rhythms say that it is ten-thirty in the evening, and time to go to sleep, while your eyes tell you that it is four in the afternoon, and you should be awake.
Body rhythms are very deep-seated and take quite some time to shift to the new local time. All sorts of biochemical events vary with the time of the day - levels of steroids in the blood; response to anaesthetics, and the ability to metabolise alcohol, for example. General mental processes are effected, too - so much so that some companies won't let their senior executives make any decisions at all within three days of flying across the Atlantic. Jet-lag is worse when you have to bring your body clock forward. So flying the Atlantic from West to Hast lends to be much more traumatic than the Fast-West journey. The symptoms of jet-lag include poor sleep and fatigue, difficulty in concentrating, headaches, loss of appetite and indigestion.
The greater the number of time zones you cross, the more you will be affected by jet-lag. Older people also suffer more than younger travellers. For short business trips you are best to try to keep to your old time, arranging meetings according to (home) times when you would normally be awake. But to minimise jet-lag when you want to adopt the new time, make a point of rigorously adhering to the new local time for all activities and make a point of re-setting your internal clock using the stimulus of light (see below).
We all experience a mild form of jet-lag whenever the clocks are put forward or back. Putting the clocks forward (in the Spring) is much more traumatic than when they are put back in the Autumn. It can take about a week to adjust to putting the clock forward.
Quite what regulates the body clock isn't completely understood, but it's related to the production of a hormone called melatonin by the pineal gland, which is in the middle of the brain. Left to itself, the body clock's normal 'day' is about twenty-four and a half hours; this internal clock is nudged into line with the solar day by the effects of sunlight and external social factors such as noise and eating. In fact, you can re-set your body clock by exposing yourself to sunlight at certain key times of the day. For example, one of the quickest ways to bring your body clock forward is to expose yourself to sunlight as soon as you get up in the morning.
When the body clock is out of line with the solar day we feel generally unwell. This is particularly noticeable in those who regularly have to go on to a night shift - nurses, police officers, some factory workers, for example - and it commonly takes them some time to change to the new rota. In the meantime, they get an irritable bowel, a general sensation of heaviness in the limbs, and headaches. All this occurs simply because they have suddenly swapped day for night and night for day.
There are two ways to help if you have to go on night duty. As far as possible try to minimise the number of clock changes you have to undergo. If you're ort permanent night duty, five nights on and two nights off, don't try to change yourself round to an 'ordinary' day on your days off. Instead, go to bed at the same time throughout the week, whether you're working or not, so that there is some consistency about your life. In this way your body clock won't be pushed around too often.
Secondly, if you do have to re-orientate your body rhythms, remember that sunlight is one of the best ways to do it. Exposure to sunlight early in the day tends to make you want to go to bed earlier; exposure to sunlight late in the day tends to make you wake up later. It's very logical if you think about it.

Complementary treatment
Aromatherapists recommend that you inhale lavender upon your arrival, if you want to slay awake, and rose geranium, if you want to sleep.
There is a new theory that taking the natural hormone melatonin will help you get hack to your own normal rhythms faster.
'Tryptophan, an amino acid, has been used to treat jet-lag with some success providing deeper and longer sleep while travelling and on arrival.
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