Rita Gunther McGrath, a Columbia Business School professor, is one of those business travelers who do not care about delays, cancellations or navigating¹ a new location. What does concern her is the seeming inability to conquer jet lag, and the accompanying symptoms that leave her groggy², unfocused and feeling, she says, “like a dishrag.”

哥伦比亚大学商学院(Columbia Business School)教授丽塔·冈瑟·麦格拉思(Rita Gunther McGrath)是那种不会担心航班延误、取消或改变降落地点的商旅客人。她担心的是时差反应，那会让她昏昏沉沉，无法集中注意力，用她自己话说，感觉就“像一块洗碗的抹布”。

“Jet lag has always been an issue for me,” says Ms. McGrath, who has been a business traveler for more than two decades and has dealt with itineraries³ that take her from New York to New Zealand to Helsinki to Hong Kong all within a matter of days.

“时差对我来说一直是个问题，”麦格拉思说。20多年来，她经常需要出差，有时可能需要在几天之内从纽约飞到新西兰、赫尔辛基，然后再到香港。

She has scoured⁴ the Internet for “jet lag cures,” and has tried preventing or dealing⁵ with the misery⁶ by avoiding alcohol, limiting light exposure or blasting her body with sunlight and “doing just about anything and everything that experts tell you to do,” Ms. McGrath said.

她已经在网上找遍了“时差治疗法”，尝试通过禁酒、避光或减少太阳下的暴晒来避免或缓解时差反应所带来的痛苦，简直“用尽了专家们说的所有方法”（麦格拉思的原话）。

“Jet lag is not conducive⁷ to the corporate⁸ environment,” she said. “There has to be some kind of help that actually works for those of us that travel a lot, but I sure can’t find it.”

“时差对工作环境没有好处，”她说，“一定有某种对我们这些经常旅行的人真正有效的方法，但我肯定是没找到。”

Although science is closer to understanding the basic biological mechanisms⁹ that make many travelers feel so miserable¹⁰ when crossing time zones, research has revealed that, at least for now, there is no one-size fits-all recommendation for preventing or dealing with the angst of jet lag.

虽然科研人员已经基本弄清了旅行者跨越多个时区时之所以感到痛苦的基本生理机制，但是研究发现，至少现在，没有一个适合所有人的预防或解除时差反应的方法。

Recommendations to beat jet lag include adjusting sleep schedules, short-term use of medications to sleep or stay awake, melatonin supplements and light exposure timing¹¹, among others, said Col. Ian Wedmore, an emergency medicine specialist for the Army.

军队急救医学专家伊恩·韦德莫尔上校(Ian Wedmore)说，缓解时差反应的建议包括调整睡眠安排，短期服用帮助入睡或保持清醒的药物，服用褪黑素，以及控制光照时间等。

These work for many people, “but not all,” said Dr. Wedmore, who practices at Madigan Army Medical Center in Tacoma, Wash.

在华盛顿州塔科马的马迪根军队医学中心(Madigan Army Medical Center)工作的韦德莫尔说，这些方法对很多人奏效，“但不是对所有人。”

That has led some travelers to resort to ineffective jet lag fixes like “shining a light behind the knee, aromatherapy and pressure point therapy,” said Jay Olson, founder¹² of JetLagRooster.com, a free app and website that helps travelers minimize jet lag.

JetLagRooster.com是一个帮助旅行者减轻时差反应的免费应用程序和网站，它的创始人杰伊·奥尔森(Jay Olson)说，一些旅行者因此求助于一些无效的时差反应疗法，比如“光照膝盖后部，香薰疗法和穴位按压疗法”。

Since its founding in 2013, the site has developed recommendations for about 240,000 travelers after they plug in data like their normal sleep-wake times and destinations.

从2013年创立时起，该网站大约为24万旅行者提供了建议，旅行者们需要输入自己正常的睡觉和起床时间以及目的地。

“We get a lot of great feedback, but remember, any time you come up with a solution, it’s for a majority of people,” said Mr. Olson, a Ph.D. candidate at McGill University, who developed the algorithm after experiencing jet lag on a trip to Greece. “There will be some people for whom this just doesn’t work.”

“我们得到很多很棒的反馈，但是记住，不管你想出什么解决办法，它都只是适合大多数人，”奥尔森说。他是麦基尔大学(McGill University)的博士研究生。他去希腊旅行出现时差反应后开发了这种算法。“这种方法可能对有些人无效。”

One hope for treatment lies in creating a “personalized” plan, based on an individual’s genetic¹³ blueprint¹⁴, said Paolo Sassone-Corsi, a scientist at the University of California, Irvine, who studies internal “body clocks,” or circadian rhythms — the 24-hour cycle of light and dark that help regulate when people wake up, sleep and eat, among other things.

保罗·萨森-科西(Paolo Sassone-Corsi)是加利福尼亚大学欧文分校(University of California, Irvine)研究生物钟的科学家。生物钟是24小时光与暗的周期，能帮助调节苏醒、入眠和进食等活动。他说，一种可能的疗法是根据个人基因蓝图创制“个性化”方案。

Scientists now know that about 15 percent of a human’s genes¹⁵ are governed by these biological clocks. Any disruption to them — whether it’s a flight across time zones that leaves travelers in bright light when their bodies crave¹⁶ sleep, or darkness when their bodies are wide-awake, shift work or even stress — can lead to jet lag or, in extreme cases, potentially lead to the development of serious health problems like obesity¹⁷ and cancer, he said.

目前，科学家们知道，大约有15%的人类基因由生物钟控制。萨森-科西说，对生物钟的破坏可能导致时差反应——不管是飞过多个时区，在身体渴望睡觉时暴露在亮光中，在身体完全清醒时处于黑暗中，还是上夜班或有压力——在极端情况下，可能导致肥胖和癌症等严重健康问题。

“What’s new is that we now recognize that we have clocks in every single cell of our bodies and from a physiologic¹⁸ point of view, some people are simply going to be more affected¹⁹ by jet lag because of their genetic or metabolic²⁰ profile,” he said.

“我们了解到的最新情况是，身体的每个细胞都有生物钟。从生理学角度讲，由于基因或新陈代谢的差异，有些人就是更容易受时差影响，”他说。

“Basically, it’s that profile that makes us individuals. But it can also be the reason why someone experiences few problems with jet lag while someone else will say ‘Dude, I’m a wreck²¹.’”

“从根本上讲，正是这种差异让我们成为独特的个体。但也可能正是因为这个原因，有些人几乎没有时差反应，而有些人会说‘伙计，我废了’。”

One piece of advice for those who travel far, but to the same spots, is to stay in the same hotel. Familiarity will help cut stress, and perhaps minimize jet lag.

那些需要长途旅行但是经常前往同一个地方的人可以尝试每次都住同一家酒店。熟悉感能帮助缓解压力，也许能最大程度地减轻时差反应。

Experiments on mice performed in Dr. Sassone-Corsi’s laboratory show that a stressful environment will decrease the ability to adjust to a new time zone. Quickly shifting meal times and exercise periods to your new locale will help, too, he said.

萨森-科西的实验室在老鼠身上进行的试验表明，紧张的环境会降低人们对新时区的适应能力。他说，快速根据当地时间改变用餐和活动时间也会有所帮助。

Doctors do know that heading west is generally easier on the body than traveling east, because it requires a person’s internal clock to “set later, not earlier,” said Dr. R. Robert Auger²², a sleep specialist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

R·罗伯特·奥格(R. Robert Auger)是明尼苏达州罗切斯特梅奥诊所(Mayo Clinic)的睡眠专科医生。他说，医生们确实知道，一般来说，比起往东飞，身体更能适应往西飞，因为往西飞是要求生物钟“往后调，而不是往前调”。

But the more time zones crossed, the tougher the jet lag.

不过，飞过的时区越多，时差反应越严重。

The rule of thumb to get your body clocks back in sync is about one day per time zone change, making it “very difficult for real road warriors²³ to get acclimated,” Dr. Auger said.

奥格说，根据人们的经验，一般来说，每往回跨越一个时区，需要一天时间来让身体与环境同步，所以这让“经常进行商务旅行的人很难适应”。

Ms. McGrath, who once tried taking only westbound flights on a round-the-world itinerary²⁴, can relate. Although her jet lag symptoms were somewhat eased by this trick, she concedes that flying west all the time is “not practical for most people.”

麦格拉思曾经尝试在环球旅行中只搭乘向西飞的航班，她觉得这种方法有所帮助。虽然这种方法让她的时差反应有所缓解，但她承认，“对大部分人来说”，总是向西飞“并不可行”。

Especially if you’re Caroline Gogolak, co-founder of the activewear company Carbon38, whose headquarters are in Los Angeles. She lives in New York.

比如卡罗琳·戈戈拉克(Caroline Gogolak)，她是运动装公司Carbon38的联合创始人，公司总部在洛杉矶，她住在纽约。

Flying west to Los Angeles is “no problem,” she said. But the return eastbound flight to New York can be a nightmare, she added.

她说，往西飞到洛杉矶“没有任何问题”。她补充说，但是往东飞回到纽约就有可能像噩梦一样。

After one trip she was so groggy and disoriented, she gave the cabdriver the wrong address for her home. “It was not one of my finer travel moments,” she said.

有一次飞回纽约时，她昏昏沉沉，晕头转向，连自家地址都跟出租车司机说错了。“那不是愉快的旅行时刻，”她说。

A common aid is melatonin, which has been studied extensively and for many travelers can help symptoms by getting the body in sync with local time more quickly, said Dr. Wedmore, the emergency medicine specialist.

急救医学专家韦德莫尔说，一个常见的辅助药物是褪黑素。它得到广泛研究，能让身体更快地与当地时间同步，帮助很多旅行者们缓解时差反应。

Although it’s not a miracle cure, “some studies do show it can help on both eastward²⁵ and westward²⁶ flights, and it does seem to help a lot of people with jet lag, including me,” he said.

他说，虽然它不是神奇的治疗方法，但是“有些研究的确表明，它对向东和向西的飞行都有帮助，而且似乎的确帮助很多人缓解了时差反应，包括我自己”。

But it hasn’t done much for Ms. McGrath. So, for now, she’s trying to find the positives.

不过，它对麦格拉思没有太大帮助。所以目前，她在努力寻找时差的好处。

“What we all need to remember is that we are incredibly privileged to be able to cross time zones so rapidly,” she said. “Plus, when I get home from a business trip and say something stupid, I just blame the jet lag. That’s good for about three days.”

“我们都需要记住，我们能那么快地穿越那么多时区，它是一种不可思议的特权，”她说，“另外，商务旅行回家后，如果我说了什么傻话，我都归罪于时差。这个借口可以用三天。”