Ear popping, jet lag and dry skin – how cabin crew beat the travel blues
Most people believe that travelling six miles above the earth’s surface in a metal tube with hundreds of people puts you at risk of picking up a cough or cold. But the air itself is not the problem.
During the flight, outside sterile air is supplied to the cabin from the engines where it is heated, compressed, cooled and passed into the cabin via the ventilation system. Around 50 per cent of this air is recirculated through high- efficiency filters which remove 99.97 per cent of dust, bacteria and fungi.
However, it is true that being in close proximity to people, as commuters will know only too well, will put you at risk of infections.
Our ears ‘pop’ when the eustachian tube – the passageway from the middle ear to the back of the throat – adjusts to changes in air pressure.
Sometimes your ears don’t pop – if it is prolonged and causing pain, an old trick for treating it is ‘hot cups’.
Motion sickness occurs when there is disagreement between what you see and the balance system of the inner ear.
Travelling across time zones upsets the body’s natural rhythms for eating and sleeping – and can affect hormonal patterns.
Sun exposure tells your body it is daytime and helps reset your body clock, which will otherwise be out of sync with your destination time. The humidity in an aircraft cabin is 20 per cent, compared to between 40 and 70 per cent in most air-conditioned buildings.
This alone does not cause true dehydration, but symptoms are exacerbated by drinking tea, coffee and alcohol, which cause your body to pass more urine.
Cabin crew are told to drink a glass of water every 20 minutes when working.
The effects of alcohol are intensified at higher altitudes because of the reduced air pressure which slows your body’s ability to absorb oxygen. The knock-on effect is that more alcohol is absorbed into the blood- stream.
The lack of moisture in cabin air also causes you to absorb any fluids faster, making you even more prone to the dehydrating effects of alcohol.
05/07/10 Spencer Barnett, bmi Airlines/Daily Mail, UK