I don’t know about you, but when I travel I want to hit the ground running and avoid jet lag! I want to sleep at night on the timezone of my new location, and get up in the morning, eat breakfast and hit the streets! It’s almost impossible to do this when you sleep the whole flight, lay awake at night and feel awful in the morning. It can be avoided! See all my tips below to avoid jet lag while traveling.

My goal is to land, stay awake until nighttime after being awake the entire flight, sleep a full night and hit the ground running the next day both at work with the laptop and enjoying the new culture. This can be brutal, invoke crankiness and may not otherwise be good for one’s’ health, but for me, it works.

Moving Clock Back for Weeks, Melatonin.. Whatever!

I have read a lot of articles about avoiding jet lag that suggest moving your clock back one hour per day one week before you leave, taking melatonin on a regimented schedule beforehand to reset the clock and on and on.. all I hear is “bla bla bla”.  If it works for you, great. If it doesn’t, this blog post is for you!

Begins on the Flying Tin Can!

The entire process begins on the aircraft!  I use these tips no matter what time I leave (red eye or morning) and what time it will be when I land in my destination.  If you land in the morning at your destination, it will be more difficult than if you land at nighttime. (This happened to me recently flying from Singapore at 8am to Los Angeles, which arrived at 11am. That day was brutal!)

My Travel Tips to avoid Jet Lag

Your goal is to stay awake the entire flight. The longest trip I’ve done this on was 28.5 hours. It’s tough but worth it.

1. First .. Don’t look at the clock. Like ever. When you get onto the plane, stop looking at the cool map showing you how many hours you have left. It’s a reminder of how many hours you have left. No Bueno.
2. If you have to sleep, sleep on the time zone you’re going to even if that means being awake for a ton of hours. On a recent trip to Europe I wrote a post and was on my 45th hour awake, which hit 60 before I landed with less than 2 hours of sleep. Ideal? Nope. But made for a better trip? In my view, absolutely. Eat brownies, drink an energy drink, whatever it takes to stay awake. You’ll enjoy your time there so much more when from day 1 you’re feeling good.
3. Books.. Lots! Bring them and read them. Not boring books that put you to sleep. (My stats students should not bring their texts).
4. Avoid magazines that you can read fast. When you see the “I’ve read that” pile get big, it’s a reminder that you are on hour 8 and only half way there.
5. Don’t fly American-based airlines if at all possible. If you are using miles like I often do, use code share airlines. You’ll likely find the service so much better and it makes staying awake more tolerable. European and Middle Eastern airlines (with the exception of British Airways and Air France) are my favorites. Admittedly, this isn’t always easy to accomplish.
6. Download movies beforehand. WiFi on the plane, if you are lucky to have it, won’t stream.
7. Don’t watch your favorite shows for 2 weeks before you go and download them instead – this gives you something to look forward to.
8. Noise cancelling headsets are a must.
9. Get up every hour and walk around even if it’s just to watch people sleep (I know how frustrating this is! Just keep thinking how miserable they will be when they get there, and how you will not!)
10. Bring a super squishy down pillow for your butt. No I’m not kidding. It hurts after a while.
11. If you have WiFi, expect it won’t work over water, even with satellite (during storms, over the poles and so on). But bring a laptop on board and do any offline (and online if you can) work to kill time and make your first few hours at your destination less stressful while you try to catch up.
12. Make a to do list of work stuff you want to get done before you go and don’t let yourself off the hook- that’ll kill a quick 12 hours or so!
13. Bring fuzzy warm socks and ibuprofen, lip stuff and eye drops- you’ll be glad about hour 6. Even the latest Boeing, which did a admirable job improving humidity, is a moisture sucking, nose-bleeding machine.
14. Music – enough said.
15. Avoid alcohol if you can. It dries you out even more, disrupts sleep patterns when you arrive and may put you to sleep if you are trying to stay awake.
16. Bring shoes that are easy to slip on to use the loo. I see people coming out of the can with only socks – that’s not water on the floor people. Eek!

Try to look at the plane not as transportation and counting hours, but your “home for the next nearly a day”, one in which you need to stay awake. When you get into that mindset it’s much easier. I actually love love love flying long hauls now, and land after a very productive “day at the office”.

And now back to a proposal for my own to do list. This blog post was on that list, and I’m writing it on a flight. 😉