Jet Lag

On some days, the runways and roads at Los Angeles International Airport are clogged with traffic worse than any freeway. Jets idle, spewing fumes into the air as they await clearance for takeoff. Shuttles and buses sit in front of terminals, trying to maneuver around passengers unloading cars with their engines running.

The UCLA men's volleyball team recently got back from a trip to Hawaii, and with many players suffering from jet lag, it seemed an ideal opportunity for Cal State Northridge to snap an eight-match losing streak against the Bruins. Think again. Though UCLA, ranked second nationally, was not its usual explosive self, the sixth-ranked Matadors did not play up to their potential either.

Resolved in 1996: to arrive at every destination--whether on a business or pleasure trip--healthy and rested. And to stay that way. For tips on how to do so, we contacted veteran travelers and asked them how they make long and frequent trips more comfortable. Here is what they said. Ernest Fleischmann, managing director, Los Angeles Philharmonic: "The secrets are water and total exhaustion. On a transatlantic flight, I drink as much mineral water as possible during the flight.

The scientists of the beauty industry are solution-oriented. For years they have been working on cure-alls for wrinkles, pimples or bad cuticles. The latest affliction to claim their attention is jet lag. Any woman with a passport knows that traveling and changing time zones can be the enemy of good looks. Now there are beauty products designed to counteract the effects of jet travel--enough to fill a 747. What's news is an awareness that the problem is more than skin deep.

From the point of view of jet lag, the Atlanta Braves would have been better off playing the Seattle Mariners than the Cleveland Indians in the World Series. Examining the records of baseball teams between 1991 and 1993, two University of Massachusetts Medical Center doctors found that East Coast teams won more often and scored 1.24 more runs against visiting West Coast teams that had just flown across the country. In general, home teams won 54.1% of their games, report Dr. William Schwartz, a specialist on the biological clock, and Dr. Lawrence Recht, a neurologist, in this week's issue of the journal Nature.

Notes from a summer vacation: Because there are times when you just have to get away from it all, I had vowed not to read a newspaper or turn on television even once during my recent two weeks in Italy. So there I was on the Mediterranean's Amalfi coast one afternoon, blissfully seated beside my wife on a sleek hydrofoil boat en route to Positano from Naples, via Capri, when a crewman inexplicably turned on the twin TV sets mounted inside the packed passenger cabin. Kablooie!

COLLISION COURSE: The Truth About Airline Safety by Ralph Nader and Wesley J. Smith (TAB Books/ McGraw Hill, $21.95 hardcover); THE FEARFUL FLYERS RESOURCE GUIDE, edited by Barry Elkus with Murray E. Tieger, Ph.D. (Argonaut Entertainment, $13.95 paper); FREQUENT FLYER by Bob Reiss (Simon & Schuster, $23 hardcover) and HOW TO BEAT JET LAG: A Practical Guide for Air Travelers by Drs. Dan A. Oren, Walter Reich, Norman E. Rosenthal and Thomas A. Wehr (Henry Holt & Co.

In this era of global competition, travel may be a necessary cost of doing business, but jet lag--the personal toll people pay for international travel--is one cost that can be contained. Recent research combined with computer technology has put new jet lag remedies as close as the nearest personal computer. New software programs create custom schedules for travelers, detailing the best times to eat, sleep and expose themselves to light to reduce the effects of jet lag.