1. Have a drink—of WATER
You probably know by now that the air in airplanes is very dry. You need to keep the water coming, inside and out. It’s even a good idea to bring a small spray bottle of water with you to keep your skin hydrated and keep you feeling refreshed. And avoid alcohol.
2. Exercise
Be sure to get up out of your seat, walk around and stretch, even if you were lucky enough to get one of those flat-reclining seats. If your hotel has an exercise room, use it! Working out will help you feel energized but will also help you sleep better when you need to.
3. Change your watch
As soon as you get on the airplane, set your watch for your destination’s time. This will help you combat jet-lag’s mental game, the one that makes you focus on what time it is at home. And once you arrive, avoid taking a nap—it’ll just make it more difficult for you to adjust.
4. Watch what you eat
Remember that meals with a lot of bread and sugar will make you tired. But eating protein will encourage your body to stay awake. And drinking a little caffeine once you arrive at your destination can help you through that first day. Also remember that food high in fat will make you lethargic, so partake in these moderately.
5. Change your clothes
If it will be morning when you arrive at your destination, consider changing clothes to restful loungewear once you’ve taken off. Bring some gentle cloths to wash your face, and a mask and pillow for comfort. The more comfortable you are the more rested you will be when you get off the plane.
What are some of your tips to help combat jet lag?
Sean C., Delta Vacations
February 9th, 2010 at 5:06 pm
Here are some helpful flight attendant tricks:
* (Sorry to disagree with you, Sean)
When you arrive at your hotel, take a shower and a nap, but set your alarm clock to wake you up in 2-3 hours. It may be hard to get up, but you’ll be happy you did! Sleep any longer and you’re in danger of not being able to sleep at night. If you’re like me, this will help you to feel more refreshed in the early evening so you aren’t ready for bed and can’t function at 6pm. In my experience, you’ll become acclimated to local time more expeditiously.
* Set your clock to ‘their’ clock.
o Eat for where you are. If you’re in Spain for example, they notoriously eat late. Eat a late snack and have dinner when they do. You’ll enjoy the benefits of engaging in local culture and get acclimated to their time schedule. Siesta anyone?
o Wake up! Set your alarm to wake in the morning and eat a good breakfast. Allowing yourself to sleep in will feel good for that morning, but it won’t help you get on your new time zone.
* Limit your first evening meal to one drink. Too many and you may find yourself drowsy but waking up at 4am.
February 13th, 2010 at 10:13 am
OK, I have to agree with Rachael on the nap idea. As a flight crew member, when I would arrive in Amsterdam from an all night flight, I would take a nap as she suggests and then “pry” myself out of bed a couple hours later. After a little while I was able to eat a light dinner and then later that evening, fall into a deep sleep which really made a difference.
shopmyZFA.com
February 14th, 2010 at 3:08 pm
Well I think it depends on what direction your going.
Here is what I do and it does depend on what the continents your going between. so lest looks at across the Atlantic.
1. west bound, get on and do some work.. and take a two or three hour nap on the plane. getting of you have to tough it out until at least the time on local time you would usually go to bed. Generally, I do wake at about 4am, but dont turn on the TV and force myself to go back to sleep.
2. east bound, eat in the airport, get on the plane, ask for an extra pillow and take an ambien. Lights till I get Paris. Usually can work through the day.
3. Dont drink on the plane.. think everyone knows that
The Pacific and going from Europe to Asia is a different beast. but I agree with the principals both have listed up top. the deal to remember is that if your body clock really doesn’t sync for 20 or so days to what ever time zone your on.. so if your like me and travel every week to another time zone (both long and short) your going to live in a really screwed up reality..
Happy travels
John..
February 20th, 2010 at 6:55 pm
My best advise: look out the window. If there’s daylight outside the plane window, don’t sleep. If you’re fatigued, nap for 1 to 2 hours or you’ll regret it once you land. If it’s dark outside the plane, make yourself sleep.
For crew members, try to observe local timezones with proper meals. JFK-NRT summer flights catch light all the way. With that in mind, only nap 2 hrs and have 1 big meal (lunch) and small snacks along the way. That way, you arrive NRT hungry and ready for early dinner.
February 28th, 2010 at 11:25 pm
In general I eat very light 24 hours before the flight, and drink only water on the plane, not just one cup. I take those homeopatic travel pills to keep my stomach in sync with the time of day my brain says it is.
When I travel from Asia to Europe, I follow your advice with the 7 hr diff: in the plane I set the watch to Europe time and stay awake in the plane until Europe goes to sleep. Really tough and it seems useless. I also dont take naps after arrival until its night. Just rough it and go for walks to stay awake.
I add a few which work for me.
1) expose yourself to as much direct sunlight as you can. Go for a brisk walks.
2) go to bed early and wake very early, stay within a few hours of home time. This makes return jet-lag easy.
3) have a drink with friends on the first or second eve. Fall into bed dead tired, and the next day your clock is reset!
When I travel from Asia to the US, all my tricks dont work with the 12hr diff. I take short naps but expose myself to direct sunlight whenever I can.
March 30th, 2010 at 11:44 am
I have more recent experience flying west than east.
I reside in ATL, but have flown on business and pleasure to Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, India, Australia, New Zealand, and Fiji many times in the last decade.
Here is what works for me.
1. Adjust your sleep cycle as much as possible before you depart. Try to shift your schedule an hour or two later if traveling west.
2. Sleep. Sleep on the plane. Before the liquid ban, I used to take NyQuil on the plane with me to help me sleep. Tylenol PM works pretty well too. I once slept about 13 hours on a 15.5 hour Qantas flight from LAX to Melbourne a few years ago.
3. On arrival, get outside in the sun. The sun helps program your circadian rhythms. Going for a walk in the sun can be a big help.
4. Choose and afternoon pick me up, such as coffee. My last trip, I took 5 Hour Energy with me and drinking one of those at 4pm worked great to help keep me going.
5. Go to bed at night, shortly after sundown. Trying to stay up late on the idea you will “sleep until morning” doesn’t work. If you stayed out all night on Friday and went to bed on Saturday morning at 7am, how long would you sleep? If you went to bed at 5pm and slept until 1am, you would be able to stay up longer than if you went to bed at 10pm and woke up at 2am. Instead, go to bed at 7pm, and get a good amount of sleep. It will be that much easier to stay up the next day if you get some solid sleep.
6. When you wake up at 1 or 2 am, take a Melatonin and go back to sleep. This works great, and you should easily be able to sleep until morning.
7. Repeat this and in a few days you should be well adjusted to the new time zone. The 5 Hour Energy in the afternoon, and Melatonin in the middle of the night really helped me adjust quickly.
When I lived in Japan and flew east back to the states, what worked well for me was to shift my cycle several hours earlier the week prior to leaving. I reached a point where the day prior to departure I went to sleep at 6pm, woke up at 2am, packed my bags, and headed to NRT for the 4:30 pm flight. I was asleep by 6pm, and by moving my clock about four hours I only needed a few days to adjust to stateside time.
April 6th, 2010 at 4:25 pm
I think staying up to fit in with the new time zone isn’t a good idea as you add sleep deprivation to your jet lag. I try to make sure I don’t go more than 16 hours without sleep, even if I just take a nap.
If traveling west, I do the above, but also go to bed early evening, and as someone said above, take a melatonin if I wake up in the night.
Traveling east, i try to make myself tired by exercising and just doing lots of stuff. I then take a higher dose of melatonin and I always sleep at night.
I’ll still feel jet lagged in the day, because my body will be producing it’s own “night time” melatonin, but I will be able to cope quite well until my body adjusts.
If you understand how the sleep/wake cycle works and affects your body at different times of the day, then it’s much easier to cope with time zone changes. I’ve read loads of stuff over the years on this, but as a summary, there’s pdf download that explains it pretty well on 1jetlag.com. It goes on a bit but the first part explains circadin rythym and your body’s own melatonin production and stuff like that.