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There will come a time in everyone's lives when our body clock seems to be working against us, especially during travel or the waking coma that comes with shift work. Thankfully, a new drug is being developed that can help us overcome jetlag and fall asleep at an altered bedtime.

With international travel a common part of life and 17 per cent of Australians doing shift work, interrupted sleep patterns are becoming the norm, which is now linked to a range of health problems, including an increase in cancer and heart disease. A team of researchers from the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Monash University,  and Vanda Pharmaceuticals have found that a drug called Tasimelteon can reset our internal clock and have it signal to our bodies that it’s time to sleep, even if it’s really the middle of the day.

Our biological clock is traditionally regulated by light and dark cues – when the Sun is out it keeps you awake and at night it tells your body that it’s time for bed. To coerce our body into sleep naturally, Tasimelteon acts in the same way as melatonin, the hormone our body releases at night time. “The drug is able to bring your biological clock forward, it’s like resetting your wristwatch,” said Associate Professor Shantha Rajaratnam, a researcher with appointments both at Monash University and Harvard Medical School that worked on the drug trials.

The study on over 400 subjects showed that people can move their sleep time forward by five hours and still get a normal night’s rest after taking Tasimelteon. For jet setters this could be a miracle - travellers need only take one dose and the next day (after a great sleep) their body, with the help of sunlight, will complete the adjustment to local time.

For night workers it’s a little harder. “In shift work we’re constantly trying to override the sleep and wake signals from our body clock, and this is made more difficult by the conflicting light and dark information our brain receives,” said Associate Professor Rajaratnam. But Tasimelteon has been shown to help the body clock adjust more rapidly to a new sleep-wake schedule and, unlike some sleeping pills, the drug doesn’t leave a ‘hangover’ effect the next morning.

Tasimelteon may need to undergo more trials, but the results so far show that it could be life changing for those of us who need to squeeze in sleep at times when our body’s telling us to stay awake. While we may not be able to change the 24/7 culture of today’s international business world, we could soon be able to give our body clocks a helping hand in keeping up.