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15 Smart Ways to Beat Jet Lag

rd.com — No one likes jet lag. We get off a flight feeling wrinkled and exhausted and then head into a day full of meetings or jump full swing into a vacation. Here's how to reset your body clock and sleep better.

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  • liamvictor, on 07/11/2008, -2/+8Sigh. Pop up windows and a javascript that stops you from closing the tab easily. RD need to sort their site out.
  • jagrmeister721, on 07/11/2008, -1/+3These are all fine ways, especially loading up on carbs- that always puts me out. But if I land early, I have to be outside, and the sun resets my circadian rhtyms. Without that, I'm on home time (or whatever time zone I left from)
  • roseyone17, on 07/11/2008, -2/+4Helpful article. Especially during these summer traveling days!
  • annjay, on 07/12/2008, -3/+3Some of them are really interesting ways.
  • cnicodemus, on 07/12/2008, -2/+11Getting smashed at the bar airport isnt a way? WTF?!?!?!
  • Rudegar, on 07/12/2008, -0/+2why no drink yourself into a stupor and when you wake up on local time you're atune?
  • Pusod, on 07/12/2008, -2/+7#16 Masturbation. Then you will doze off to dreamland.
  • crossmr, on 07/12/2008, -0/+2If you genuinely get messed up on all of a 3 hour time change from the east to west coast, I'd hate to see these people traveling internationally.
    "If you normally have dinner in Atlanta at 8:00 P.M. for instance, when you fly to Los Angeles for two days of business meetings, have dinner at 5:00 P.M."
    Wow that's great. What if you're not a freak and you eat breakfast at 7 am, should I be getting up around 3:30 am so I can have breakfast? I'm sure my business partners won't mind me ducking out for lunch at 9 am, or 2 pm for dinner.
  • psocket, on 07/12/2008, -0/+2The best secret for jet lag (or sleep schedule shift in general) is food. I recently listened to a story about how the body's "food clock" is actually much more powerful at resetting the circadian rhythm than the body's "light clock" . But, to put it to the test, my wife recently started a new job on nights and tried this method to shift her sleep schedule rapidly. It worked.

    What she did was:
    1.) Fast for the 16 hours before she would eat at her new wake time.
    2.) Stay up until her new sleep time.
    3.) Sleep until new wake time (she used a sleeping pill as well to help stay asleep).
    4.) Have a moderate to large nutritive meal.

    The next evening she stayed up without feeling tired at all, and slept normally on her new schedule without any feeling of "jet lag" or tiredness. It was a six hour shift, from going to sleep at 10 PM to going to sleep at 4 AM.

    I believe the reasoning behind this is: If an organism hasn't had food for a bit and the body thinks it may be starving, or going into a situation of limited food, it makes sense to reset the biological clock so that the organism is awake when the food is present.

    http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/2008 ...
  • kahrytan, on 07/12/2008, -0/+6it's not hard to sleep in Economy class. Just sit down, grab your own small pillow. and fall asleep.

    i have NEVER had any problems sleeping in Economy class.
    • bipolarruledout, on 07/12/2008, -0/+2Have you considered having your narcolepsy treated?
  • proliance, on 07/12/2008, -0/+216. Drive. Its a little awkward when going to Europe, but think of the stories you'll have!
  • Pixelante, on 07/12/2008, -1/+4No take off socks and shoes and walk around the rug on bare feet making fists with the toes? Buried.
  • S4MF1SHER, on 07/12/2008, -0/+2"The secret to surviving air travel is when you get to where you're going, you take your shoes and socks off and makes fists with your toes"

    Die Hard kicks ass.

    Heavy drinking works too.
  • BotchaMcCoola, on 07/12/2008, -1/+0Nice try but the public will beat jet lag by inability to afford flying. Thanks Bush, we feel real safe from the Taliban again.
  • TheKorn2, on 07/12/2008, -2/+2I'm surprised nobody has commented that the first example is completely BACKWARDS:

    "If you’re heading west to San Diego from Boston, for example, three days before you leave, eat an hour earlier each day. Flying from San Diego back to Boston? Help reverse the acclimation and get back on home time by eating an hour later each day for three days."

    Uh, so then you'd be six hours ahead of local time in san fran, and three hours ahead of home time? WTF good is THAT!?
  • benzzene, on 07/12/2008, -0/+1Was the example in 1. ACCLIMATE right?
    quote from article: "If you’re heading west to San Diego from Boston, for example, three days before you leave, eat an hour earlier each day. Flying from San Diego back to Boston? Help reverse the acclimation and get back on home time by eating an hour later each day for three days."
    When it's dinner time in San Diego, say, 7:30pm, it's 10:30pm in Boston. I would have thought that that would be the right time to eat dinner if you wanted to acclimate.
  • TaniaZL, on 07/12/2008, -2/+1Very good read, I found this useful because I am going to Singapore very shortly.
  • bentrinh, on 07/12/2008, -0/+6AVOID AIRLINE FOOD. A fourth cue your body uses to set its internal clock is food. Since airline food is served onboard according to the time at your home base, eating it can sabotage efforts to reset your clock to the time zone to which you’re traveling.

    What, the whole 14 hour flight? I would be awake from the hunger the entire time.
    • dokbeast7, on 07/12/2008, -0/+1Good thing airlines don't really serve food anymore huh?
      • koreth, on 07/12/2008, -0/+0Some airlines serve perfectly acceptable food. I've had decent meals on British Air, Lufthansa, Japan Airlines, and Air China. Though the food pretty much sucks across the board on American carriers, I'd have to agree.
  • koreth, on 07/12/2008, -0/+0My approach, which has worked great for me on multiple trips from the US to Europe and Asia, is sleep deprivation: Get just a couple hours of sleep, or none at all, the night before the flight. Force myself to stay awake for the whole flight, and to stay awake when I get where I'm going until it's nighttime. By then I am so utterly, completely exhausted that the fatigue completely overwhelms my body clock and I sleep a full 8+ hours even if it's the middle of the day back home. The next morning I'm reset to the local time.
  • damndj, on 07/12/2008, -0/+1Melatonin is evil for me, I will avoid that at all costs.

    I've had good success using "NoJetLag" which can be bought at travel shops. I don't know if it's a placebo effect, or if it actually works, but I've used it on trips to Amsterdam with great success.

    • bipolarruledout, on 07/12/2008, -0/+1I bet it has melatonin in it.

  • bipolarruledout, on 07/12/2008, -0/+1Ambien
  • micahned, on 07/12/2008, -0/+1I thought I would learn something new from this article

    I was wrong.
  • quaxon, on 07/12/2008, -0/+1Jeez, do people really have suck a problem with jetlag? Im usually pretty good at immediately adjusting to the time zone im in. I recently went to tokyo from sfo, i left on wednesday at 1pm, 12 hours later when i landed it was thursday at 4pm (tokyo time, local time would have been about 2am) with out any sleep on the flight and was able to go out and walk around til about 12am. Ive also done the same thing when flying to australia and pretty much any other place i go, once i get off the plane my excitement at being in a new place gives me lots of energy to go explore a few hours before i crash.
  • drexl, on 07/13/2008, -0/+1I always wear sandals when I fly. The reason for this? Well a few years ago a gentleman sat down beside me before my flight took off and he was in a nice suit but was wearing flip flops, I noticed it and commented on his attire and he explained that for him that if his feet are comfortable the rest of his body would relax. He swore by it. It's nice to have your shoes off when you fly....just make sure your feet are clean...please.
  • Requeim, on 07/14/2008, -0/+1Health is wealth, so get rich information on health and medical treatments for all health problems under one roof. Get insurance tips to protect your health rights.
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  • Jaenns, on 08/04/2008, -0/+0All you have to do is not eat some time before the flight as well as during the flight,...yes, this goes for the 12 hours (and longer) journeys.
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