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Air Travel > Overcoming Jet Lag
Flying to Europe from North
America means your body has to adjust to being six to nine hours
"early", the phenomenon known as jet lag. Given that your time in Europe
will probably be limited, you'll want to get your body's clock on local
time as soon as possible to maximize your sightseeing time. To that end,
there are a number of jet lag "cures" and recommendations out on the
Internet, and different things work for different people. I have my own
remedy that works well for me and has helped travel companions and
others to whom I've recommended it, so I'm putting it here for anyone
else who might want to try it.
There are two components of jet lag when traveling to Europe. First,
there's the first-day "hangover" when you're exhausted from
essentially
having missed a night's sleep and starting your day in the middle of
your normal sleeping time. The other part is the necessity of resetting
your body's clock as quickly as possible to match the local
sleeping time. My jet lag plan tackles both.
My strategy also takes into account the fact that I won't sleep much or at all
on the plane. It's not because I don't want to;
sleeping on the
plane is a great mechanism to overcome jet lag (and makes those long
hours in the sky fly by <grin>.) But I simply can't sleep on planes. I
mean, really, who can sleep in those seats? And I'm usually excited
about the trip and my mind is busy anticipating what I'm about to see. All of that means I won't get much rest on the flight. I'm usually
content on getting some of that half-asleep, half-awake meditative rest
or a catnap or two. So my scheme is also designed to overcome that
reality as well.
The first part of the plan starts several days before the trip. I
make sure I am completely ready to go no later than two days before departure by being
completely packed and having all the other little things taken care of
such as having the newspaper stopped, mail being held, arrangements for
my dogs, and a ride to the airport, not to mention all the necessary
preparations for the trip itself. This way, the day before the trip is relaxed and
relatively "normal". The evening
before the flight, I take care of all the "pre-flight" stuff such as
making sure the house is ready to be left, my dogs are taken to their
sitter, etc., and I double-check my pack and documents and have everything
sitting by the door ready to go. This means no last minute scurry before
I leave; I can just walk out and know that everything is fine.
All of the above is intended to make sure I can focus on the next step,
which is to be well-rested the day I leave. To do this, I get extra
sleep the night before the trip by going to sleep at my normal bedtime
(11:00pm) and then sleeping late. I try to get at least 10
hours-- preferably 11 but definitely no more than 12. I can usually do
this naturally, but if there's any doubt and I want to guarantee it, I
set my alarm to wake me up after one REM cycle, somewhere around
12:30am. Then I take an OTC sleep aid that will knock me out
for 8 more hours. It's important to get that extra sleep
by sleeping late, not by going to bed early. I'll explain why later. Of course, if you
have an early flight, then you'll have to adjust your bedtime back a
little to accomplish this, but keep it to an absolute minimum. This is
where having everything done the day before helps-- you can just get out of
bed and go.
Like I mentioned earlier, I won't sleep on the plane, but after dinner,
I do try to relax and close my eyes and get some of that quasi-sleep. When
breakfast is served, it's time to get up and start the day. All I drink during
the flight is water and juice, and coffee with breakfast-- no alcohol (there's plenty of that waiting for me on the ground! <grin>)
Once we land, I hit the ground running. No napping during the day,
period! If I'm feeling a little drained, I'll stop at a café and have a
pick-me-up coffee or soda. Lunch is a light meal; heavy meals will just make me more
sleepy. Dinner can be moderately heavy and that's the first time I'll
have a beer, but only one that first night. Too much alcohol actually
disrupts your sleep and that first night's sleep is very important and
needs to be as restful as possible. Bedtime is no earlier than 9:00pm
local time but no later than 10:30pm. The next morning, wake-up is at
the normal time, 8:00am or so and viola, my internal clock is reset and I'm fine
for the rest of the trip.
So how does this all work? Since you essentially miss a night's sleep
going to Europe, you have to mitigate that. Normally, missing a night's
sleep means you're awake for about 40 straight hours, give or take
(we'll call this the "sleep gap"). Since Europe is seven hours ahead of me (I'm in Central Time), that
instantly drops the sleep gap down to around 33 hours. By sleeping a couple or three hours late the
morning of the trip, the gap is narrowed even more so that it's a
more tolerable 30 hours or so. Furthermore, the extra sleep the
morning of the trip "front-loads" extra rest that I can draw on during the
first day in Europe, which means that I'm operating at a decent level
most of that day; not 100%, but not in that zombie-like trance that
means the day is a wash. Not napping and staying awake until at least 9:00pm
that first night forces my biological clock to reset to local time
immediately, and the
slightly early bedtime means I knock yet another hour or two off the
sleep gap, getting it down to around 28 or 29 hours. It also allows me to get the
"make-up" sleep that I need so that I can wake-up at
the normal time the next morning, which drops me perfectly into the
local schedule. On Day 2, I'm usually at 100% again and from there I
just go to bed and wake up at the normal times.
So there's my jet lag mitigation strategy. If you're headed to Europe and
want to give it try, please let me know how it works out for you. Good
luck and have a good trip!
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