By John Scott

It is always curious to see how quietly a brand name slips into public awareness and everyone takes it for granted. There is never any need to explain what it is nor what it does. It seems Ambien has reached that threshold. No longer does Ambien lurk in the shadows. Ambien proudly takes its place alongside Adidas and Apple as instantly recognisable initial “A” brands.

How do I know? The Boston Herald on 27th March was typical, “The Red Sox learned a lot during their week-long relationship with Ambien in Japan.“ Yes, that’s right. This March, online and hardcopy newspapers have been covering the Red Sox trip to Japan to launch their new season. The team flew out from Chicago for mere twelve hours in the air. Perhaps more significantly than the length of time is the fact that they were crossing the international dateline. Changing time zones makes everyone on board a candidate for jet lag.

The team has full time medical advice which is obviously targeted on sports injuries, but must also be able to deal with the hazards of travelling both ways across the Pacific. Everyone was primed to drink plenty of water and to avoid stimulants like coffee and alcohol. But the secret weapon was Ambien.

When you shift time zones, your body’s internal clock and circadian rhythms get confused. The first thing affected is your sleep cycle. Whether you realise it or not, your body is counting down the hours to its usual sleep time. Habits are the milestones that mark the passing of our lives. But when you have travelled fourteen hours back into your past, you may have a whole day to live through before you can go to sleep again. So, the Red Sox avoided sleeping too much on the plane, and then used Ambien to get themselves to sleep at night, Japan time. It is a kind of main force approach to solving the problem of resetting your internal clock.

Taking Ambien on an airplane is not recommended. If you are woken only a few hours after taking the tablet by an aircrew determined to feed you breakfast when you think it is 2 am, you are likely to “sleepwalk” and do other routine tasks, and have no memory of doing anything. You will end up hopelessly drowsy and disorientated for hours. The Red Sox have the right idea. Wait for the hotel room before crashing out. Then sleep through for an uninterrupted eight hours. That will minimise the risk of any sluggishness the next “day”.

So is Ambien a remedy for jet lag? Not really. No matter what you do, you are always likely to find yourself walking round like a zombie until you have adjusted. But Ambien can speed up the recovery process by giving you a really good night’s sleep when you have the chance (local time). So solve the insomnia problem and you should be less irritable and better able to cope in the new time zone. On the plane itself there’s always melatonin until the Ambien can rescue you.



Submitted By JohnScott

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