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Planning a long-haul flight? For just $9.95, TimeZone Management Consulting
of California will send a tailor-made timetable for beating jet lag, complete
with in-flight meal times and coffee breaks, and sunbathing schedules for
the day after arrival.

The service, says company president Alan Cameron, is based on science.
Specifically, it relies on studies that describe how light, caffeine and
food affect the internal clocks which control the rhythms of our sleep,
body temperature and other biological processes. ‘We’ve just taken the science
and simplified it,’ he says.

On a flight from Los Angeles to London, for instance, TimeZone schedules
two low-calorie meals but no dinner, and sleep at 11 pm London time. For
the next day, the plan recommends five hours’ sunlight, starting at 7 pm
local time. This last part may be difficult to achieve. ‘But a purist carries
a sun lamp,’ says Cameron.

On the grounds that certain times of day are better for travelling than
others, the guide also rates flights according to how departure time and
meal times fit with the plan.

Arthur Winfree from the University of Arizona, who has made a long study
of biological clocks, scoffs at the meal-time and caffeine regimen, but
says the light part makes some sense. ‘I’ve used light to reset my clock
for 20 years in all of my foreign travels and it’s worked very well,’ he
says. Light resets our body clock daily, keeping us in step with a 24-hour
world.

But the right time to catch some rays is hard to pin down, says Winfree,
because everyone is on a different routine. ‘What time the Sun comes up
and goes down is completely irrelevant if you work inside all day and don’t
get any sunlight until your three o’clock tennis game,’ he says. ‘Unless
you figure out an individual’s normal schedule, my feeling is that any recommendations
are pretty much random.’