

How To Travel the World Without Jet Lag (2009) - sinak
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2829880/

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kator
LOL I've flown as much as 250k miles in one year. My number one goal is to
make sure I get on the "destination" sleep pattern as quickly as possible. I
set my clock to the destination time as soon as I board the plane, force
myself to sleep on that schedule and I open the windows in the Hotel to make
sure the sun wakes me up. I do feel the sun is a big part of the process. Most
people who travel with me find it frustrating how quickly I adjust to new time
zones. I always give them the same advice.. Follow the Sun.. Live by the Sun..
Sleep when it goes down..

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arethuza
What happens when you travel to somewhere (closer to poles) that have very
large variations between summer and winter?

For example, here in Scotland at this time of year (which isn't _that_ far
North) sunrise is 4:30 or so, sunset is past 10pm and it really doesn't get
that dark - so keeping curtains/shutters tightly closed is necessary to get a
decent nights sleep. Similarly, in winter we get fairly short days (~6 hours)
so we'd need to have a 4 hour work day!

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dpeck
That definitely takes more work. What threw me off the most in higher
latitudes is how much my appetite depending on the light level.

My first trip that "far" north was to Dublin in midsummer, and I wasn't really
in the mood for dinner until after 10pm which wasn't a good thing as we
discovered most kitchens close far earlier than that.

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eitally
I fly a lot for work, too, and I'm convinced that the worst cause of jet lag
is the air travel itself, not the time zone changes. With the craptastic
quality of economy class travel these days, the lack of food service on semi-
long flights (I'm looking at you, Delta, on your US transcontinental
flights!), the insane flight schedules (I'm looking at you, India, for whom
all international flights heading west leave somewhere between midnight and
3am!), the ridiculous and time consuming airport security theater (I'm looking
at you Sao Paulo immigration zone!), the "everything costs extra" revenue
model that forces everyone to try to carry-on everything ... resulting in
unnecessarily lengthy boarding processes when a slew of bags end up being
valet checked anyway, any nearly every other part of flying. Perhaps I am
being too harsh and uppity, but flying commercial airlines these days -- with
VERY few exceptions -- feels like riding a city bus, which is decidedly not
restful. Sorry, I just had to get that off my chest. I've flown to India,
Brazil, Mexico, cross-country US, and everything about it sucked. The only
bright spot was Global Entry, which imho is the way immigration & customs
should work for everyone (minus the rigmarole of enrolling), and Pre-Check,
which is the way check-in security used to be.

This rant was just a long-winded way of saying I blame the airlines for a lot
of my jet lag problems. The fasting method works well but I get grumpy when my
blood sugar drops too low so I generally avoid this. Getting on the
destination sleep pattern by forcing myself to stay up until that time zone
goes to bed is my usual method, and it generally only takes two days to get
completely adjusted. With a wife & little kids at home, though, I'll sometimes
make a decision not to adjust so I can minimize the unpleasantness when I
return (I live in North Carolina and when I travel to California I always stay
on my home timezone, going to bed by 8-9pm and waking up at 3-4am Pacific.).

~~~
_puk
I fly regularly from London to West Coast US and have kids / wife at home, so
I can appreciate your rant.

Having tried varying different combos of the route either one hop, or broken
up (including internal Delta) I have found that the choice of airline does
indeed make the biggest difference not only to the journey, but to how quickly
I can adapt to the new timezone. I'm lucky that air new Zealand have their
flagship route from LHR to LAX, and their level of comfort far exceeds many of
the others doing the same trip (May be one of your VERY few exceptions; yes
talking economy). That coupled with pretty decent flight times - Leaving
around 4pm flying overnight and landing around 7pm US - really makes a huge
difference to how quickly I can adjust when I get the other end (Stay awake
for the flight and go to bed when I land or sleep the whole flight and land
ready for the morning depending on direction)

It's the 4.5 hour train journey to/from LHR, and that fills me with dread
every time, not the 10H flight.

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peterarmstrong
I've found the simpler solution that works for me is to fast for 16 hours,
including the entire flight, and eat breakfast on the plane an hour before
landing. Also, I sleep on the plane, starting right after takeoff, with a
sleeping pill if needed. This has worked for me in both directions for flights
like Vancouver to London (9+ hours). Instead of being ruined for a week, I get
essentially no jet lag.

Yes this means turning down all food and alcohol on the plane, and just
drinking water.

The idea is that your body has 2 clocks, a food clock and a light clock, and
that the food clock will win if you fast and then break your fast (get it?)
with an appropriately timed breakfast.

[http://harpers.org/blog/2012/03/the-empty-stomach-fasting-
to...](http://harpers.org/blog/2012/03/the-empty-stomach-fasting-to-beat-jet-
lag/)

[http://blogs.hbr.org/2009/05/a-fast-solution-to-jet-
lag/](http://blogs.hbr.org/2009/05/a-fast-solution-to-jet-lag/)

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epaladin
It always bothers me that there never seems to be any particular pattern in
when an airline serves meals during long flights- sometimes it's based on the
departure time zone and sometimes it's based on the arrival time zone. I think
more often it's the former for some crazy reason- maybe getting airlines to
serve meals based on what we now know as best practice for this would be quite
helpful.

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herge
Maybe they serve meals when the flight crew wants to eat.

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fenomas
If anyone's grasping about for a mobile app idea, this article seems to be
crying out for some kind of accompanying configurator. I loosely grasp what
it's trying to say about the causes of phase shifts, but to apply it to my
next trip I'd need to reread the article and spend some time in front of a
spreadsheet..

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omervk
I've been influenced by jetlag more than once and I can say hands-down the
most effective and least cumbersome method I've found is just to take a
Melatonin pill and drowse off to sleep 10 minutes later. If I'm still feeling
it, I'd take another one before going to sleep the next night.

