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If you don’t experience jet lag flying from the US to Europe, or on other long flights, then it is probably all a big joke. If you do get it, it is anything but a joke and a huge hassle. Some people are tired for days and even take a full week to recover.
There are lots of ideas and tips floating around, so my best recommendation is to read what you can, consider what seems reasonable and try different things on successive flights. The best program for me worked fairly well during a trip from DC to Geneva last summer. On prior trips, I have been so out of wack and so tired that I would literally be bumping into walls and routinely getting up at two or three in the morning, totally messing up any plans for the day ahead and then collapsing into sleep sometime in the afternoon or early evening. What a mess!
Here are my tips:
1. Follow the airline employees idea and don’t eat on the flight. Fast for the entire distance and maybe for part of the day before leaving. (Take some fruit or something good from the airline food so you’ll have it later on.)
2. Drink lots and lots of water on the flight and avoid alcohol. This is a good rule on any flight, since the air pressurization at flight level is only a fraction of the norm, leading the massive dehydration. If you are flying at 38,000 ft., your body, in the aircraft, could be at six thousand feet of pressure, which means you are spending five to seven hours or more on a mountain top. Dehydration induces a feeling of fatigue.
3. Wear dark, dark sunglasses during the “night time” portion of your flight according to the time zone you are leaving. If you take off at seven PM, then put on the glasses around eight (this is for now, spring/summer). Don’t take those glasses off until the sun comes up in the time zone you left. If you are in Europe, that means around 11 AM local time. That is not that difficult, since you’ll likely be landing somewhere between seven and ten AM. Consider wearing a black out mask on the aircraft instead of the sunglasses. Of course, you’ll have to take the sunglasses off for a few minutes as you pass through immigration, but do the best you can to keep them on continually.
4. Some people say don’t sleep on the flight. This makes the flight seem even longer, however, and you are likely to be bushed when you arrive anyway, so this advice doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. If you want to try it, of course, go ahead.
5. Consider taking a flight from any east coast city that has a same day arrival in London. Currently, a few airlines offer flights from New York, Boston and DC that take off in the morning (local time) and arrive in London that evening, typically between nine and ten PM, London time. This avoids the day-for-night turned upside down feeling of arriving in Europe just when you should be sleeping soundly. I have tried this a couple of times, but steps 1 through 3 above seem to work just about as well. It would be interesting to try those steps in combination with a same day flight, but I haven’t had the opportunity.
6. Try to go to bed as late as possible on the first day in the arrival time zone, preferably close to the time you go to bed at home, back in the time zone you left. This is impossible for me. The best I can do is fall off to sleep sometime around local dinner time, usually having missed the meal. Then, I’ll be up in the middle of the night. This is when I would consider a bottle of beer or a drink to encourage going back to sleep after an hour or so, but it really isn’t necessary, because sleep will come back on its own. On these occasions, it helps, a lot, to have an understanding spouse or partner who can go off on their own in the morning hours while one stays back, trying to catch up to the local time.
So, that’s what worked for me last summer when, previously, nothing worked. I would be pleased to learn your success stories, too.
I have even considered the idea of flying through Iceland (when the volcano is quiet), spending a night and then flying on to Europe. One airline, Iceland Air, allows passengers to do that at no extra charge (you have to pay for a room of course). Boston to Iceland is only a little more than three hours, so it is worth considering. Otherwise, how about flying all the way around the world to the west and coming back to Europe? Anything but a week of jetlag blues.
Doug Terry, 6.10.10
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