Jet Lag Strategies

Only solution is to just suck it up and not sleep once you land until it’s a normal time to go to bed in that time zone.

12 hours. I’ve tried that on red eyes before where I didn’t sleep the night before and ended up not being able to sleep on the plane. Wasn’t a fun experience.

I may try nap when I land (late morning). And drink a lot of coffee the rest of the day.

I vaguely remember hearing that moving your eating times around can help.

Not Dr recommended, but a Xanex, OTC sleep aid and a few drinks in Business Class and no naps during the day upon arrival does the trick regularly for me .

Coming back home I usually just say frick it and recover when back.

But going to like on vacation or work when you want to maximize your time, I always find it helps to plan starting the night before the trip. Exercise and sleep early or late the night before, if going east go to bed hella early like 8pm if going west hella late like 2am. Then exercise and be as active as possible prior to your flight so your body is tired and needs rest again. The last thing you want is to have your mind and muscles not in a place to need to sleep in tight quarters.

After that as said some meds.

My last couple flights the meals have been really off times. Like dinner at 9pm headed east to Europe. So you may consider bringing food on the plane to help buy extra time to rest or whatever.

I took 150 mg of trazadone on my direct flight to London and that def did the trick.

1. The biggest thing that screws most people up is having your flight land at the destination at the wrong time. For instance, when flying to Tokyo, I can select a flight that lands nearly in Tokyo (Haneda) at around 8AM. This means I have to force myself to stay awake until at least 6 or 7PM to have a chance at normalization. Chances are not great at pulling that off.

However, I can also book a direct flight that lands at Narita at about 3PM. Then, I take the bus to the hotel, about 90 minutes. By the time I've unpacked, grabbed "dinner" it's nearly 7PM. The first morning, I'll always wake up at 3 or 4AM, but I'm adjusted within 12-18 hours of landing.

2. Once you board, set your watch to destination time. The only time I allow myself to sleep (in coach, of course) until it's about 9AM at my destination. After that, I stay awake for the rest of the flight.

3. I use booze to sleep. Always been skeptical of pills, because I don't want to come to while I have no pants and I'm being frog-marched off the plane after my drugged behavior forces a diversion to Boise.

quote:

---

I may try nap when I land (late morning).

---

Please, don't. I did that after my fam landed in Spain many decades ago, while they went out to do stuff, and I was for certain, the most unadjusted person in my family for DAYS, including my sub 10 year old sisters. Not helped by the Spanish tendency to not eat dinner until 10PM, for sure, but no. When you've done international travel for that many hours, you will sleep through phone alarms, wake up calls, the lot. Or, you'll wake up and take a leak and swear you're going to go out for a coffee and find yourself in bed, waking up at 1AM.

You didn't mention whether you were staying in the Northern Hemisphere. To me, it's much less painful going east or west than heading to somewhere like Chile based on the flight times.

Light exposure for most is more important than food. You're exposed to darkness for hours of your northern hemisphere flight (due to blinds being closed, usually.) Like I said earlier, if it's 9AM in Amsterdam as you've starting to descend over England for breakfast, hit the coffee, open your blinds, resolve yourself to suck it up and make plans to be *out* of your hotel until such point you get to nearly dark local time.

quote:

---

Source: nervous flyer who's consumption is proportional to the length of the flight lol.

---

Try a 16h55m flight to Australia where the seatbelt sign was on for at least 12 hours of the flight due to annoying turbulence (not roller coaster, but had me clenching the tray table.) I ran out of booze, I mean, water, less than four hours in.

I might be sober when I land, but Uber and a departure lounge guarantee I'm not when I depart.

quote:

---

sleeping regiment

---

There's a fair amount of research that shows fasting helps. I've used the protocol several times now and it really does work, plus airline food sucks.

Harvard Article