Consider the cicada. These centimetre-long grubs spend their lives happily squirming through the soil of much of North East America. Then, after 17 years of blissful underground existence, they emerge in swarms, fly into the air, mate and lay eggs.

It sounds a bit like a holiday in Ibiza. Nevertheless, the behaviour of magicicada septendecim is startling for one particular feature: each member of each grub community knows exactly when to pop out of the ground so they all appear in unison. Some internal clock rings a biochemical bell, and all at once thousands of cicadas simultaneously spiral up to perform their version of the Mystery Dance.

These antics, although fascinating, may seem unconnected with the business of surviving the rigours of long-distance travel. Yet they are linked, as is revealed at the London Natural History Museum's new exhibition, Rhythms of Life, for it turns out that human beings, like other forms of life, have their own behaviour-regulating internal clocks. These biological timepieces may not produce such abrupt and sensational leaps in character as that displayed by the cicada. Nevertheless, they are important, for when their activity is disrupted, we suffer.

'Every animal or plant has some biochemical control system that acts as an internal biological clock,' said exhibition co-ordinator Paul Bowers. 'In the case of the cicada, it produces no discernible behavioural changes for 17 years, and then suddenly everything changes at once. However, in other creatures - including humans - their influence on behaviour is constant and pervasive.'

In fact, humans have many different biological clocks, the four most important being those that regulate our immune system, digestion, appetite and sleep. 'If you fly to Hong Kong, which is eight hours in front of us, all four of these clocks are disrupted, and each tries to reset itself,' says Bowers. 'Some clocks try to go forward eight hours, others try to go back 16 hours. The end result is biological mayhem, which we experience as jet lag.'

Not that we are unique in suffering such misery. Most mammals seem to experience some form of jet leg. You can induce it in the laboratory - in hamsters, for instance. All you have to do is fiddle around with the lighting of their cages. Switch to Hawaiian time and the creatures' clocks go haywire so that they run on their damnable, squeaky little wheels in daylight and not when you are trying to sleep.

But if we understand the causes of jet lag, does that help us prevent it, or at least minimise its effects? In short, what can we do to fight its effects? The answer, says Bower, is quite a lot.

First, you should try to adapt to the time zone you are travelling to as soon as possible. Don't wait until you get on your plane. Start to make adjustments - meals or naps - before you leave home for the airport. 'Then when you get on to the plane, lay off the alcohol,' says Bowers. 'It's a depressant and it will simply make you feel lousy.'

However, you can take drugs, he says - in particular, coffee, which will keep you awake when your body tries to persuade you to nod off at inappropriate times.

'Humans have two programmed sleep signals: the main one is switched on at night; the second, lighter one comes on in the early afternoon. We are actually programmed to take naps, in other words. And that can be dangerous when you first arrive in a new time zone. It can make you drowsy just when you have to stay awake.' So take lots of coffee, particularly during the first two days of your trip. Melatonin is also acceptable, adds Bowers, but again travellers should take care. It should be taken only on the evening before you leave. Take it at the wrong time and you will accentuate your jet lag.

'There is also a great deal of variation among people when it comes to biological clocks. Some people naturally swing to a day that is slightly more than 24 hours long, some to one that is less than 24 hours. The former are owls; they tend to stay up late at night. The latter are larks; they get up early in the morning.

'Similarly, there is great variation in individuals' ability to cope with long-distance travel. So if someone swears by an answer to jet lag, remember, it may not work for you. You have to work on developing your own personalised cure from these basic ingredients.'

• The Rhythms of Life exhibition can be seen at the Natural History Museum, South Kensington, London, until 7 May.