How To Avoid Jet Lag
When travel between time zones, sometimes your internal body clock can get out of sync with the actual time in at your destination. The clock on the wall may say 8PM, but to your body it feels like time to get up. Here is how to get acclimated to the new time.
Traveling East to West
When traveling west, there is usually not much of a problem. For instance, it may take 9 hours to fly from Kiev to New York City. But since there is a 6 hour time zone difference, you will arrive just three hours later according to the wall clock.
The only thing you will find is that you want to go to bed early and wake up early for a few days or even weeks after arriving. Usually that is not such a bad thing because you’ll get more done in the day if you get up earlier.
Traveling West to East
Most of the problems come up when traveling east. For instance, if you take an overnight flight from New York to Amsterdam, you may leave at 7:30pm and arrive 8am. But you may not get much sleep and will be tired the next day.
Here are tips to avoid jet lag when flying east:
- A few days before your trip, start adjusting your schedule to get on the new time zone. If you normally get up at 7am, start getting up at 6am or 5am. The day of your journey, it would not be a bad idea to get up at 4:00am or even 3:30am.
- Right after your plane takes off, immediately set your watch to the new time zone. For instance, if the local time is 7:30pm and the time at your destination is 1:30am, advance your watch to 1:30am the next day.
- The airlines will normally give you a meal on overseas flghts. But it may not be served until 3:30am. It would be best to not eat at that time, but it is hard to refuse a free meal from the airline. Eat as little as possible and save anything in a package like cookies for the next day.
- Avoid watching a movie or television on the screen. Instead get a blanket and try to sleep. If the plane is full you will have to sleep sitting up in your seat. If there plane is empty, try to stretch out if you can. Get as much sleep as possible.
- If you have a connecting flight the next morning, go to your gate and try to sleep there if it is in the morning. If there are not a lot of people, find a bench without armrests and stretch out.
- When you arrive at your hotel or hostel, resist all urges sleep or take a nap during the day. You must stay awake until a normal early bedtime. Maybe go to bed at 8pm or 9pm. Absolutely do not sleep while it is still light outside.
- Finally, wake up the next morning at your normal time, say 7am, after a full night’s rest. Now you are on the new time zone without jet lag.