I am flying to New York next month, so I was pleased when Web-Blinds, which, unsurprisingly, sells blinds over the web, sent me its “jet lag calculator”.

下个月，我要坐飞机前往纽约，因此，当从事网上窗帘销售的Web-Blinds给我发送“时差计算器”的时候，我很高兴。

Once I had filled my flight details in, the calculator gave me a pre-departure programme, which involved going to sleep and waking up an hour later than the night before for three nights.

在我填写了航班信息以后，计算器向我提供了一个需要在出发前执行的计划，包括连续三晚推迟一小时上床睡觉和起床。

This may work for people who can go to sleep and wake up whenever they like, but I cannot. As I have difficulty sleeping in my own bed, jet lag hits me particularly hard, which is why I have been studying possible cures for years.

对于那些可以在任何时间入睡和醒来的人们来说，这种办法或许有用，但我做不到。就算在我自己的床上，我都很难睡着，因此时差反应尤其困扰我，这就是为什么多年来我一直在研究一切可能的应对办法。

I once read a book called Around the World in Eighty Ways, in which distinguished experts such as Lulu, the entertainer, and Diana Rigg, the actress, offered the same cure for jet lag: do not eat on the flight and drink as much non-alcoholic fluid as you can.

我曾经阅读过一本叫做《80件你可以在旅行中和孩子一起做的事》(Around the World in Eighty Ways)。在书中，艺人Lulu和女演员戴安娜里格(Diana Rigg)等“杰出专家”提供了同一种应对时差反应的办法：不要在飞机上吃东西，尽可能地多喝非酒精类的饮料。

This worked for me on two long-haul trips, but not on the third, so I stopped. A regime this self-denying has to produce results every time.

在两次长途旅行中，这种方法对我奏效了，但第三次就不行了，因此我不再使用这种办法。如此自我克制的办法必须得次次起效，我才能坚持。

In the same book, another actress, Maureen Lipman, said she had heard of a remedy for jet lag that involved putting brown paper inside your socks.

在同一本书里，另一名女演员莫琳丠湧曼(Maureen Lipman)声称，她听说一种对付时差反应的办法是把牛皮纸放在袜子里。

Two people from the marketing department at Imperial College London wrote to say they had tried the brown-paper remedy and it had worked. I asked them to consult the world-class Imperial scientists to see whether any of them had a theory as to why it worked. They reported back that no one had a clue.

伦敦帝国理工学院(Imperial College London)市场营销部的两人写信告诉我，他们尝试过“牛皮纸疗法”，发现确实有效。我请他们去咨询帝国理工学院的世界级科学家，有没有人能对这种办法的原理提出一个解释。他们回复我，没有人有任何头绪。

The Insomnia Cure Group of Bristol told me that the answer to jet lag was to go for a long walk as soon as you arrived, as the quality of light sent signals to your body clock that helped it to adjust.

布里斯托尔的失眠治疗组(Insomnia Cure Group of Bristol)告诉我，要解决时差反应，答案是一抵达就进行长距离散步，因为光照质量会给你的生物钟传递信号，帮助其进行调整。

I always do this. A walk helps you to loosen up after a flight and lets you see a bit of the area. But I have not noticed it having any effect on jet lag.

我总是这样做。散步能帮助在你飞行之后放松，也让你能够看一看周边环境。但我还没注意到这种方法对时差反应有什么效果。

In the 1990s, I interviewed Curtis Graeber, who was then the “head of human factors” at Boeing, who suggested a bowl of ice-cream before going to bed in a faraway place. Ice- cream stimulated the body’s production of tryptophan, which helped us sleep, he said. It may work for him and you, but not for me.

上世纪90年代，我采访了时任波音(Boeing)“人力因素主管”的柯蒂斯格雷伯(Curtis Graeber)，他建议在遥远的地方入睡前吃一碗冰激凌。冰激凌会刺激人体产生色氨酸，这有助于我们入眠。这对他，对你可能都有用，但对我没用。

Melatonin tablets were all the rage for a time. Melatonin is a hormone that our bodies release in the evening. Again, I found the tablets gave me some hours of sleep on a couple of occasions but then stopped working.

褪黑素药片曾风靡一时。褪黑素是一种人体每天在晚上分泌的一种激素。同样，头两次这种药片能让我睡上几小时，之后就再也没用了。

Given how many people travel and that they have to attend meetings, give speeches or sign contracts when they arrive, I expected jet lag research to have moved on in recent years.

考虑到许多人都要出行，而且当他们到达目的地以后要参加会议、发表讲话或者签署合约，我期望近几年时差研究能有所进步。

There has been plenty of research, but much of it is inconclusive or contradictory.

研究很多，但其中很大一部分都是尚无定论或相互矛盾的。

A 2002 review of 10 melatonin studies found positive results in eight of them, with decreased jet lag, although it appeared the tablets were less effective after westward than eastward flights.

2002年，人们对10项褪黑素研究进行了评审，发现其中8项的结果是正面的，能够减缓时差反应，尽管在向西飞行的情况下这种药片的效果似乎不如向东飞行。

However, the current advice from the UK’s National Health Service is that “at the moment there’s not enough evidence to say whether melatonin supplements are effective”. A 2012 study in the Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine, supported by the Canadian Olympic Committee, examined how to reduce jet lag in athletes, whose performance is under greater scrutiny than most of ours.

然而，英国国家医疗服务体系(NHS)目前给出的建议是，“当前还没有足够证据判断补充褪黑素对时差反应是否有效”。2012年，一篇发布在《临床运动医学期刊》(CJSM)、得到加拿大奥利匹克委员会支持的论文，研究了如何减少运动员的时差反应。比起大多数人，运动员的表现受到更严密的观察。

The study threw every remedy at the athletes: getting enough sleep before travel to reduce “sleep debt”, adjusting their watches to the destination when boarding the aircraft, sleeping and eating on destination time, light therapy, light avoidance, melatonin, sedatives and “judicious use of napping and caffeine”.

这项研究在运动员身上使用了每一种疗法：在出行前保证足够的睡眠以减少“睡眠债务”，登机后将手表调到目的地时间，根据目的地时间睡眠和进食，光照疗法、避光、褪黑素、使用镇静剂和“明智地小睡和摄入咖啡因”。

The conclusion? “There are vast inter-individual and intra-individual variations in response to these interventions.” What works for you won’t always work for me and what works for you won’t always work.

结论如何？“对这些干预手段，个体之间和个体自身都存在巨大差异。”对你有用的办法对我未必有用，对你自己也不总是有用。

The most promising research is at Kyoto University on mice, explained by Ed Yong, in a lucid 2013 National Geographic blog. The scientists managed to delete some genes in mice, which made them immune to jet lag. They also used chemicals to produce a similar effect in mice whose genes had not been altered, raising the prospect of a human pill to defeat jet lag.

最有希望的研究是京都大学(Kyoto University)对小鼠做的实验。Ed Yong于2013年在《国家地理杂志》(National Geographic)网站上发布了一篇清楚易懂的博文，对这个实验进行了解释。科学家设法切除了小鼠的一些基因，使它们对时差反应免疫。科学家还使用一些化学品在没有修改基因的小鼠身上收到了同样的效果，这带来了研制一种用于人类、击败时差反应的药物的可能性。

Unfortunately, any such pill would affect our blood pressure, salt levels and kidneys so that, Mr Yong wrote, we would “produce urine by the bucket”.

遗憾的是，任何这样的药物都会影响我们的血压、体内含盐水平和肾脏，以至于，Ed Yong写道，如果服用这种药物，我们将“一桶一桶的排尿”。

I think we have to accept that our bodies are not equipped for rapid transportation across time zones. Air travel is a wonderful development — and jet lag is the price we pay for it.

我想，我们不得不接受这样一个事实，我们的身体无法适应快速跨越时区。航空旅行是一种不可思议的发展——时差反应是我们为其付出的代价。