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EAN 2025 | “Social jet lag”: the impact on neurological and psychiatric morbidity
Ambra Stefani, MD, PhD, Medical University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria, shares insights into the concept of “social jet lag” and its link to neurological and psychiatric conditions. This refers to the misalignment of biological and societal clocks, which can have consequences on both short-term and long-term health, including increased risks of mental health disorders, neurological diseases, and cardiovascular and metabolic conditions. This interview took place at the 11th Congress of the European Academy of Neurology (EAN 2025) in Helsinki, Finland.
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Transcript
This is called social jet lag, so it’s this misalignment between the individual clock and what society is actually demanding. For example, most of us need to be awake early in the morning and this is penalizing particular people with late chronotypes, and school time, work time, of course, commuting, meeting, timing of meetings. And this has consequences on the short, but in particular also on the long term, is related to increased several diseases, not only neurological and mental health disorders, but also cardiovascular and metabolic ones...
This is called social jet lag, so it’s this misalignment between the individual clock and what society is actually demanding. For example, most of us need to be awake early in the morning and this is penalizing particular people with late chronotypes, and school time, work time, of course, commuting, meeting, timing of meetings. And this has consequences on the short, but in particular also on the long term, is related to increased several diseases, not only neurological and mental health disorders, but also cardiovascular and metabolic ones. For mental health disorders there is in particular a relationship with depression and this can start even among teenagers due to social jet lag. They have a higher predisposition of developing depression if they suffer from social jet lag and in adulthood, it continues, of course, so chronic jet lag is worse, worsening the risk and also for neurological diseases we can have several conditions that are diseases that have a higher risk to develop including neurodegenerative diseases, dementia and cardiovascular as well. From the individual point of view, of course, we can try to improve our sleep as much as possible, sleep hygiene for example sleeping in a dark environment as quiet as possible, having a regular sleep and wake time every day, so also avoiding catching up during the weekend because just a small amount for a relatively short time can be helpful but on the long term this is also linked with a higher increase of several diseases. It’s constant catching up during the weekend. So at the individual level, it’s difficult, we can do this small adjustment but if we have the possibility to have a more flexible schedule, like flexible working times for kids, later starting school time. In some countries, some states in the US, this has been implemented, for example, and we will really need societal changes, structural changes, really to have a real improvement which is really relevant at the societal level and not only at the individual one.
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Disclosures
Advisory Board: Takeda.
