For students looking to conquer end-of-summer jet lag or rise and shine for their first weeks of school, SFU researcher Jay Olson has just the trick.

In the wake of the successful launch of his website, JetLagRooster.com, earlier this year, Olson has released new iPhone and Android apps to help jet lagged travellers adjust their schedules. In addition, Olson is launching his newest website, EarlyWaker.com, which suggests that waking up earlier than normal and being alert can be achieved by shifting your body clock.

Olson was first inspired to create a jet lag program after a trip to Greece, where his jet lag caused him to sleep through the afternoons and stay up all night. “I was only down there for about three weeks, and the first week of the trip was basically lost,” said Olson. His own experience with jet lag was what motivated him to create a program for avoiding it when he discovered the science behind it as a psychology student at SFU.

With the success of the JetLag Rooster website, which gives travellers a “jet lag plan” to follow, Olson was encouraged to turn the site mobile. “When you’re travelling, you don’t want to pay the data fees,” said Olson. “I thought an app would be a good idea because it could work offline.”

Both the JetLagRooster app and EarlyWaker.com use the same principle to adjust your sleeping schedule: light exposure. The human body is driven by circadian rhythms, which align with our environment’s natural light and dark cycle: for example, peak drowsiness usually occurs around 5:00 a.m., when it is often dark out.

For travellers whose circadian rhythms are off track due to time change, it is necessary to cause a phase shift — an advance or delay in circadian rhythms. To shift your body clock, Olson suggests controlling your light exposure. This might include exposing yourself to light in the early morning to make yourself wake up earlier (“phase advance”) or light around bed time to make yourself wake up later (“phase delay”).

 

[Olson’s] own experience with jet lag was what motivated him to create a program for avoiding it.

This technology developed into his newest website, EarlyWaker.com, after Olson was contacted by a sleep physician in Ohio. “He contacted me and said the procedure for shifting your body clock to avoid jet lag — if say, you were flying from Vancouver to Montreal — is the same as what he prescribes to patients when they’re trying to wake up earlier,” said Olson.

After further research and collaboration, Olson unveiled his site, which creates personalized light exposure schedules for individuals who wish to wake up earlier.

Olson told The Peak, “Say that you stay up late watching Netflix, and then you wake up in the morning a few hours before you usually do for a job interview. Regardless of how much sleep you got, if your body still thinks that it’s a time that it should be sleeping . . . then that’s how you’re going to feel.”

Students can also read Olson’s tips and tricks for better sleep on EarlyWaker.com. These include napping early, reserving the bed for sleep and sex (not screens), exercising early, and no stimulants at night.

Olson hopes that his present and future research will bring professionals’ knowledge into the public square. “It seems like there are a lot of things that psychologists know that the public doesn’t seem to know, and I am interested in bridging that gap.”