The tweet made by businessman and entrepreneur Brian Johnson sparked controversy as soon as it was released through his official account on June 23, as Johnson recommended that the number of international travel times not exceed once in 3 months, with a maximum of 4 times a year.
Johnson based his recommendation on his vital readings after traveling to China, Australia and India, as the body – according to his analysis – needs weeks of recovery as a result of changes in the biological clock, describing international travel for long hours and repeatedly as an insult to the body.
How true is this claim? Have proven scientific studies referred to it?
Who is Brian Johnson?
Brian Johnson is a businessman who amassed a huge financial fortune through which he was able to establish crazy projects aimed at achieving his ambition of alleged immortality, most notably the Blueprint project, which cost him $4 million in an effort to reduce his biological age and slow down aging to enable his body and vital functions to jump back in time virtually. For his organs to function as an 18-year-old person!
Johnson believes that scientific progress in the future may provide eternal life, and to confirm this, he began his project with self-practice in an unprecedented experiment in research on longevity and sustainable youth, as he now follows a strict and intensive program under the supervision of a specialized medical team.
Through this program, Johnson engages in an intensive diet and continuous exercise according to a specific format, in addition to being subjected to continuous monitoring of all his vital indicators, and relying on taking a large number of experimental drug pills and nutritional supplements, the number of which reached 111 pills per day.
Johnson, with his strange lifestyle and his desperate quest to sanctify life and reject death as an inevitable fact, faced a barrage of harsh criticism for experimenting with medications and regimens that were not based on consistent and reliable scientific evidence.
The equation between the body and long travel
The term jet lag, which Brian Johnson relied on in his recommendation to avoid international travel more than once every 3 months, refers to health disorders that occur in the body after quickly moving across regions with different time zones during which the plane travels more than 3,000 miles.
In addition to the long recovery caused by the body’s internal biological clock conflicting with the time in the new destination, the body’s system becomes disturbed, causing fatigue, sleep disturbances, digestive problems, as well as poor concentration and headaches.
“Jet jet lag” begins days after arriving at the destination, unlike jet lag, which occurs as an immediate response to the hassle of the flight itself, either due to long sitting in narrow spaces on the plane (8 to 14 hours), or due to low oxygen, dehydration, air pressure, etc.
Health consequences of long travel in studies
The European College of Sport Science issued a statement published in 2007 in the European Journal of Sport Science on how to deal with jet lag for athletes.
The statement stressed that the continuous need to travel due to sports tournaments and competitions may negatively affect the level of physical and mental performance of players depending on the duration, timing and destination of the trip, stressing that exposure to natural light and eating certain types of food helps the body overcome this condition and regain activity, thus confirming the negative consequences suffered by this group, of which travel is an essential part.
Recently, in 2026, a narrative systematic review of 89 studies was published that included trials in athletes of various categories to evaluate the effects of long travel and jet lag on the health and physical performance of athletes.
The results, after being analyzed, showed that long hours of travel lead to imbalances in body temperature, blood pressure levels, hours of sleep, and cortisol levels (the stress hormone), and thus impair the physical effort and performance required among various types of sports. It indicated that partial recovery requires a few days, while complete recovery from the impact of a long trip requires 7 days on average, and may reach 11 days, taking into account individual differences.
However, the small sample sizes of the included studies, and the reliance on observational studies or individual cases for inference, limit the generalizability of their results.
Another experiment was conducted by researchers from Japan on models of mice and published in the journal Nature with the aim of trying to explain and understand the relationship between disruption of the biological clock caused by long travel and slow recovery.
In their speech, the researchers confirmed that frequent long-term travel raises the risk of exposure to some health problems such as cancer, diabetes, and high blood pressure. They stressed that their results resulted in a positive impact on the recovery period after travel through prior preparation by helping the body adapt according to the time of the destination country.
This is done by shifting waking hours by, for example, by 4 hours on an 8-hour flight headed east a day before the scheduled time, so that the difference in rhythm is gradual and not sudden, so recovery is faster.
Travel stress and sleep disturbances that affect travelers on long flights also promote mood swings and reduce the level of physical activity, especially among athletes who are frequently exposed to such conditions.
Recommendations for overcoming the hardships of travel and their consequences
Sometimes we cannot control our circumstances, and events and occasions arise that require us to move more than 4 times a year. Therefore, if fatigue and stress caused by the time difference are the main cause of the state of health confusion that occurs, then a set of recommendations that experts have come up with may help us overcome the state of fatigue that may lead to professional or social negligence that makes us lose the goal for which we incurred the hardships and burdens of travel.
Among the most prominent recommendations of health authorities and organizations in this regard are:
- Exposure to natural light from the sun to help the body adjust its biological rhythm again. You can also be exposed to bright indoor lighting to simulate the effect of the sun.
- Use drinks that contain stimulants such as caffeine during the day, but without excessive amounts, to enable the body to regain the effects of day and night.
- Delay sleep time by two or three hours two days before travel time, if the travel destination is towards the west, or bring it forward by two hours than usual if the destination is towards the east, to help the body quickly adapt to the country’s time upon arrival.
- Eat small meals during the flight, drink sufficient amounts of water, and avoid napping for more than 20 minutes.
A gap that requires further studies
Despite the importance of the topic, and its initial agreement with what Johnson argued, research and studies are still incomplete and do not confirm the results, nor do they reveal the precise mechanism by which internal biological clock disruption occurs in an understandable way, with the weak availability of laboratory models that explain and explain this disturbing health phenomenon.
Therefore, it is recommended to allocate research budgets that highlight the negative effects of long travel trips on health, and contribute to bridging the gap that exists across scientific platforms, especially with the continuous increase in air travel.
