Jet Lag Tips and Tricks

[AustinTink]

I have a long haul flight (15.5 hours) coming up. I’m starting to freak a little bit about the potential for extreme jet lag. Any tips or tricks you can share to shake the jet lag upon arrival?

 

[ronandannette]

Well, the only thing that has ever worked for us is to force yourself to function in whatever time of day it is when you land. This generally limits the suffering to one day. If it's daytime and you're dead tired, suck it up somehow and keep going until a reasonable bedtime. If it's evening and you're wide awake, take some sort of sleep aid and try to get at least six hours. You won't feel fantastic the next morning but you will be OK, and probably decently adjusted by evening. Good luck and have fun.

PS: There was one very short trip to Hawaii we took that we didn't even bother trying to adjust. We just went to bed around 9:00 pm and got up around 4:00 am, which was pretty close to what would have been our local time at home. It worked out because Honolulu was pretty much a 24-hour city.

 

[_19disnA]

In the times I had to fly to Europe on a long flight for business, we arrived early in the morning. I found it made NO sense to rush off to the office as we were all exhausted even if we slept during the flight. Upon arrival we spent several hours snoozing/relaxing at the hotel. I think it makes sense to plan ahead and realize they when you arrive (traveling in either direction) you generally won't be able to function normally that first day and pretending you can just ignore the time difference is not a good idea.

 

[jdb in AZ]

Since I struggle(!) to sleep on a plane, the only way I can handle jet lag is to sleep it off, so we allow time for that.

 

[Kevin O'Brien]

I have a long haul flight (15.5 hours) coming up. I’m starting to freak a little bit about the potential for extreme jet lag. Any tips or tricks you can share to shake the jet lag upon arrival?

I'm flying on a long haul flight too from Manchester to Orlando international airport which is a 9 hour flight with Virgin Atlantic also before that I have a 4 hours journey on a train from Llanelli change at Manchester Piciddilly and get train at platform 14 to Manchester Airport and my train journey is the day before my flight because I'm staying the night at radisson blu Manchester Airport Hotel because my flight is at around 12pm them flying from Manchester to Orlando and going to WDW and Disney cruise next month in April. I have done this journey last year but I was ok going because the time zone is 5 hours later than the GMT time zone but when I got back home last year I was really tired it was the return journey home back that I was more tired.

 

[AustinTink]

Since I struggle(!) to sleep on a plane, the only way I can handle jet lag is to sleep it off, so we allow time for that.

This is my problem as well. I can’t sleep on a plane regardless of the hour or how tired I am.

 

[AustinTink]

If it's daytime and you're dead tired, suck it up somehow and keep going until a reasonable bedtime.

This is our plan. Hit the ground running and walk all day.

 

[fly girl]

Jet lag is real and it stinks! Trust me I know this well as I worked international flights. Crew only gets a small rest break so we land just as tired as everyone else.

What I do depends on the time of day I arrive.

Morning arrival - once you get to hotel room, take a nap. Only 1-1.5 hours. Force yourself to get up, and wow is it difficult when that bed is comfy, but you have too or you’ll never adjust! Stay up as long as you can.

Afternoon arrival - stay up and stick it out. You’ll likely go to bed a little earlier than normal, but push yourself to make it at least an hour after dinner.

 

[Meriweather]

We have a long flight coming too. Phoenix to Amsterdam with a 2 hour layover.
I can not sleep on a plane.
I just attack the day the best I can. Rest some, but try to stick to the normal time of the place I am.

 

[kymom99]

My flight to London is direct and we booked some catagory, not sure what it’s called, on British airways that gives us extra seat recline, wider seats, etc. so I’m hoping to sleep. We fly overnight.

 

[easyas123]

Well, the only thing that has ever worked for us is to force yourself to function in whatever time of day it is when you land. This generally limits the suffering to one day. If it's daytime and you're dead tired, suck it up somehow and keep going until a reasonable bedtime.

I second this, it is what we do when flying overseas. Whatever time it is locally when we get off the plane we adapt, same when coming home. That and if at all possible, we schedule nothing the day we arrive and we just walk the city/area we arrived in. We also try our hardest to arrange things so that we don't have to go into the office the day after we get home.

 

[happybaker]

Whatever time it is locally when we get off the plane we adapt, same when coming home. That and if at all possible, we schedule nothing the day we arrive and we just walk the city/area we arrived in.

We do the same. We drop our stuff off wherever we're staying and then walk around. The walking and fresh air help. We usually do an easy tour/activity, but something that only takes an hour or so to do.

 

[ronandannette]

This is our plan. Hit the ground running and walk all day.

One time, we landed in Paris around 11:00 am after a red-eye. We were out at DLP by 1:00'ish. I wish we'd taken more pictures so I'd have been left with some recollection of what we did there. I imagine it was lovely.

 

[OrangeBirdGirl]

We start adjusting our bodies a couple days before vacation to get onto their time zone. Then when it's the day to fly if lwe are flying to Europe we have an overnight flight and arrive in the morning, that isn't bad. We make sure we are super tired and can fall asleep at like 7pm when our flight departs US. Flying to Asia is a little trickier as we usually arrive later afternoon. So we will sometimes take a quick nap when we take off but then we are forcing ourselves to stay awake most of the flight which gets hard to entertain ourselves. Flying to HI is either 4 or 5 hours behind us. We don't mess our schedule to reflect HI. We just go to bed earlier that night like 8pm local time. Then we are up at like 4am local time and that isn't horrible.

 

[Miffy]

We have a long flight coming too. Phoenix to Amsterdam with a 2 hour layover.
I can not sleep on a plane.
I just attack the day the best I can. Rest some, but try to stick to the normal time of the place I am.

This is off-topic, but if you're going to see the Vermeer, I am so envious!

On-topic, I can't sleep for a long time on a plane, but I can take catnaps, so, OP, if you can do that, it's a help. If it's daytime when I land, I generally try to stay awake, and if I'm in a place that's new to me, I have no problem staying awake since I'm so psyched about seeing new things.

Coming home is another story. It takes me forever to adjust after the return trip. After coming back from Japan to NYC, it took me a month--no kidding--to readjust.

 

[Moliphino]

One time, we landed in Paris around 11:00 am after a red-eye. We were out at DLP by 1:00'ish. I wish we'd taken more pictures so I'd have been left with some recollection of what we did there. I imagine it was lovely.

We did that once (my parents, my sister, and me). We were all super irritable and snapping at each other until we had a few drinks (and food) at Sports Bar and relaxed.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

We don't mess our schedule to reflect HI. We just go to bed earlier that night like 8pm local time. Then we are up at like 4am local time and that isn't horrible.

I don't even think jet lag was the thing for us for Hawaii at least why our sleep schedule shifted. We were there for long enough that it shouldn't have impacted us and yet we typically did go to sleep rather early (9-9:30pn usually but I think as early as 8:30 one time) and woke up about 5 or 6 am. A lot of that had to do with the sunlight I think. We went in September over labor day back in 2016. The sun set about an hour earlier than our home would have been and sunrise roughly 45 mins earlier than our home would have been. If we had gone to bed later in the evening I think we would have woken up later in the morning.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I asked our DISer friends about this same question since we have our longest flight coming up in the summer to Europe.

The flight to Venice is an overnight flight with a layover (now longer with a flight change) in Paris. The flight home from Athens is a morning flight with a layover in Heathrow.

5 of our DISer friends went to Paris last year. From the advice things like:

• trying to go to bed earlier incrementally in the days leading up to the flight
• abstaining from caffeine (unless you really need it) the day of your flight or if your flight is late night do caffeine hours and hours ahead so it wears off.
• try melatonin if you think you may need help. I have tried PureZZZs and that does work for me but also gets my RLS going so I don't use it much at all. But just knowing if that works for you. That could be good for the flight if you have a long enough uninterrupted one or to have with you if you think you may struggle with sleeping the first night or two. But experiment before your trip with that so you know how your body does or doesn't react.
• I can sleep on a plane but it's never as restorative as an actual bed. I hope you can at least fall asleep somewhat maybe several smaller power naps.

 

[tcufrog]

Drink plenty of water and avoid alcohol and sodas. I take Benedryl to help me sleep since Melatonin gives me horribly vivid dreams. If you plan to take Melatonin or Benadryl to help you sleep try them before the flight if you haven't before to see if you tolerate them.

 

[Travel60]

When I was younger, I had a boss who expected staff to fly to Europe overnight, walk in to the office and work a full day. I also did a couple of similar trips when helping to chaperone DDs high school trips to Europe. (Exhausting!)

I would try to adjust a few days before by going to bed earlier and getting up earlier. Also tried very hard to sleep, or at least rest with eyes closed, on the plane - both the above situations had me in cattle-car economy. On landing, strong coffee, sweets and grit kept me going until an early bedtime - maybe 9:00. By the next day I was fairly ok. Flying west never bothered me as much, even to Australia.

DH and I now fly only business or first class on long-haul flights. I enjoy a glass of wine before "bedtime" and sleep in my lay-flat seat. The first day I'm still more tired than usual but not bad.