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The worse part of travelling long distances for me, by far, is jet lag. Travelling is stressful enough, especially if flights are delayed or cancelled, and bags are lost, but then to add in the stress of trying to adjust your body to a new time zone? No thanks! It’s the worse.

Photo: Nicolas Mirguet
I’m so bad with getting adjusted to my new time zone. I already have difficulty sleeping normally, and throwing in the confusion of trying to train a new sleep pattern makes for a funky sleep pattern with unintentional sleepless nights. Not to mention constantly being completely exhausted (and cranky! Sorry friends).
Right now, as I type this, I’m in the middle of another fight against jet lag after coming home from Budapest. That is a 9-hour difference, almost a complete flip of my schedule. Going to Budapest was terrible. It took me almost a week before I was fully adjusted to my new time zone. I did everything wrong – in particular taking long naps in the middle of the day which was my regular sleep time at home. I didn’t establish a schedule and adjusting to the new time zone was terribly difficult.
But this time around, going home, I didn’t have the flexibility to take naps. I had to go back to work more or less right away. Because of that, and trying to do this properly by following the below tips, I seem to be doing okay. I’m now on day 3 of being back home and last night I almost slept a full night. Me 1 Jet Lag 0.
What exactly is jet lag?
Most people know more or less what it is, but why does it happen? Jet lag happens when you travel quickly across time zones. This rapid travel throws off your circadian rhythm, which helps control when you wake up and go to sleep based on cues in our environment such as daylight, mealtimes and other parts of a regular schedule. The more time zones you cross, the more likely you are to be sleepy and sluggish and the longer and more intense the symptoms are likely to be. They say that for every time zone you cross going east, you need a day to readjust. When going west, it takes about half that time.
While you can’t completely eliminate jet lag, you can drastically reduce its effects by following these tips:
Before You Go
A lot of people recommend adjusting your schedule by an hour or two to get a head start on adjusting your schedule by slowly waking up or going to bed earlier or later. I don’t do that as I don’t think it really helps especially when making such a big change. However, if you’re only travelling two or three time zones, this may help, though. On my visit to New York, I really had no problem changing time zones. I am naturally an early riser in Vancouver, waking up without an alarm clock at 5:30 or 6AM. With the three hour time change that is 8:30 or 9AM in New York – perfectly fine if you’re on vacation.
While Traveling
Think in your new time zone
When you’re in the midst of travelling, it helps to think in your new time zone and adjust your schedule on the plane accordingly. Sleep when you should be sleeping in the new time zone, eat when you’re supposed to. If you have layovers, it helps to use that time zone as well as a middle ground to adjust. For example, on my rerouted flight home, I had a layover in Toronto which is 6 hours behind Budapest, but 3 hours ahead of Vancouver. By thinking about just that 6-hour difference, eating lunch and dinner according to Toronto time, it somehow made the adjustment slightly easier as well.
Sleep!
I can never sleep when I’m on a plane. It’s just too uncomfortable being upright and with my head going every which way. However, I have found that sleeping is important. Part of the overall sluggishness I feel is simply because I don’t sleep enough for a day or two, making jet lag even worse. I had an eye mask available to me on my flight home, which I used and it worked so well. It blocked out the lights from the airplane, surrounding passengers and from the entertainment system. I slept well, even if it was brief and despite being upright. In the future, I’ll definitely be using this again. I also have ear plugs with me, or I “listen” to a podcast to put me to sleep. There is something about the cadence of sleep with the gentle rumblings of a plane that really help me to sleep.
At Your Destination
Natural light
It helps to get daylight and sunlight as much as possible once you arrive. The exposure to natural light helps you to adjust quickly as it resets your internal clock. So get out of bed, get outside and get moving.
No naps
I’m guilty of this one. I never have the willpower to stay awake and suffer through it. I don’t know how others do it. I get so tired that the world becomes dizzy and I get terrible headaches. So I take a nap which is more detrimental than anything when it comes to overcoming jet lag. I made the mistake of taking too long of a nap going east, but on the return trip, I fought really hard to stay awake. I did take a super short nap yesterday after work – 15 minutes – to keep me going until I can go to sleep at a normal hour. If you must nap, take it earlier in the day, set an alarm and don’t sleep for long.
Medication
A friend of mine swears by taking melatonin. I’ve never done it as I’m a bit leery of taking things that I don’t need. Melatonin is a hormone that your body naturally creates before you sleep helping to control the time you sleep and wake up. By taking some of it before you want to sleep, it helps to regulate your circadian rhythm and set it to a new time. Be sure to talk to your doctor before you decide to go this route.
Advice from Other Travellers
I also turned to my travel blogging friends and picked their brains on how to get over jet lag. Here is what they had to say:
Angela of Angela Travels
I get over jet lag by getting to the normal sleep schedule of the time zone I am in without taking naps. Water and walking around also help when starting to feel drained.
Sharon of Where’s Sharon?
My biggest tip is to do exactly what all the literature tells you to do which is to adjust straight away. We avoid anything more than a small nap on arrival unless it’s night time, no matter how tired we are. We try to eat to the new timezone as well. So far this has paid off for us, and, despite changing time zones many times in the last year with young kids, they have only handled it badly once.
Phoebe of Short Road to Happy
Sleep (or stay awake) according to the time at your destination, not your current location. I personally could sleep anytime so I do just that- I sleep through my jet-lag…OR just travel by motorcycle instead and avoid jet-lag altogether!
Henry of Fotoeins Fotopress
Once I get onto the plane, I switch my watch/phone to the time-zone at my destination and adapt my routine on the plane to whatever time of day is at the destination. If I’m on a red-eye overnight flight to my destination, I will try to stay awake as long as I can to force myself to see some daylight and force my body to adapt further to the people’s and city’s rhythms at the destination. An approximate rule-of-thumb is one day to adapt for every added hour *east*. For example, with five hours time difference between Toronto and London, England, it might take someone five full days and nights before they feel they’re in the proper rhythm.
Chris of A Brit and A Southerner
I think for most people jet lag is inevitable and you just have to learn to deal with it. However, the more you travel and become accustomed to this feeling, the better you can prepare yourselves for this. Depending on your flight distance, the time that you schedule your flights can have an impact on your jet lag. We travel to England from the USA frequently and even though it’s only a 7-8 hour flight if we fly through the night we generally feel worse because we arrive first thing in the morning, GMT. Our last trip over Christmas 2013 saw us take a day flight from Chicago and arrive at Heathrow at 10:00PM GMT which really helped because we were able to go to bed and wake up the next morning and feel like our body clocks were back to normal.
If you are forced to arriving somewhere in the morning, I would recommend trying to stay awake as long as possible. The easiest way to do this is to grab some caffeine from Starbucks or a local coffee establishment and then get out and start exploring! Your excitement and adrenalin will keep you going. If you can get through to darkness setting, you have won the battle because you can get an early night and ‘hopefully’ be back to normal the next day.
Jet lag is an awful feeling and for some folks can continue for several days. Preparation is paramount in order to alleviate this as much as possible.
Dave of Dave’s Travel Corner
I always try to drink as much water as I can on the plane – that means it is important that I have an aisle seat! When I arrive at my International destination I find that exercise helps keep the sleepiness at bay. Along with that I try to stay up until night time at whatever destination I find myself in. My advice for succumbing to jet lag symptoms (this works well in Thailand) is to get a massage in the evening – that will put you right to sleep and certainly helps relax and relieve the stress of long flights.

I like doing a bit of yoga after a long flight. Not only does exercise help with jet lag, stretching feels amazing after those long hours on the plane. Photo: Gabriel Garcia Marengo
Beth of Besudesu Abroad
The week leading up to my flight, I start to alter my sleeping times, slowing adjusting to the correct time zone. This usually means I go to sleep maybe 30 minutes to an hour earlier each day. Most of my long-haul flights are scheduled for early in the morning (anywhere from 4-8am), so I force myself to stay awake that night in order to sleep as soon as I get on the plane. Having adjusted to the time zone before arriving, so far has been the best way to fight off jet lag!
P.S. The Stages of Jet Lag in GIFs
How do you get over jet lag? Do you have any particularly good or bad experiences?
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Hi, I’m surprised no one has mentioned diet. A long time ago, the US army devised a diet to help with jet lag. Being Australian, I’ve often had to put up with severe jet lag and it doesn’t get easier as you get older. We now break our 20 hour flight with a 24 to 36 hour stopover which also helps with jet lag.
You might like to try the diet some time: http://military-fitness.military.com/2013/07/flights-and-fights-preventing-jet-lag.html
You make a good point. While researching this article, a couple places did note the importance of diet and of hydration, but I opted to leave it out because it could probably be its own post! Thanks for the link. I’ll check it out.
These are excellent tips! I don’t travel often and when I do, it is not across many time zones. If anything I cross one but that’s about it. Still good info though so I pinned it. The one thing I do know about melatonin is that it gives you oddly vivid dreams. VERY vivid, almost as if you are awake. But oh well, I imagine having to stay awake when you’re normally asleep and it’s still daylight might be a little weird so whatever works right?! Happy traveling! #SITSBlogging
Interesting note on melatonin. Thanks for letting me know. Thanks for the pin!
This is such a thorough guide to dealing with jet-lag that I’m actually going to bookmark it and use it for my future travels. This would make an excellent brochure or e-book download for purchase.
Oh wow, thanks Erin! Thanks for the great idea. I might just turn this into an ebook!
It’s amazing to think about the way our bodies adjust and react to travel and time changes. From the little travel I have done, I know I have a rough time with anything to do with my circadian rhythm. #SITSBlogging
Nice post! I follow all these tips (to varying degrees) except for one: sleeping on the airplane. I try every time, and have found it impossible even with eye shades, earplugs, and neck pillows or even business class seats/beds. I’m not sure what my problem is since I sleep well everywhere else! The result is no jetlag, but I’m sleepy from essentially pulling an all-nighter whenever I have a red-eye flight. I’ll vouch that the other tips work really well though because as soon as I get a full night’s rest, I’m 100% adjusted.
Thanks Becky! I normally don’t sleep very well on planes. I think its the upright position, and unfamiliar location. What I had going for me was that I was completely exhausted because I hadn’t slept much the night before and getting up early for my flight. I agree that usually my utter exhaustion is typically because I didn’t sleep much at all during the travel time.
I can confirm that drinking fizz like a fish in the lounge followed by a long flight does not beat jet lag 😉
YET I NEVER LEARN!!!!
Haha! But it’s SO tempting. And when I fly international I can never say no to a glass of vino.
Flying west (e.g., Vancouver to Hong Kong; Santiago to Sydney; Frankfurt am Main to Vancouver) rarely bothered me, but the return east almost always nailed me. Maintaining good hydration en route on the plane is a great reminder; some airlines are really good about that on transcon or transoceanic long-hauls as they send their attendants up and down the aisles with water. Thanks for including me in your post, Adelina!
Great tips and advice! Thanks for including us 🙂
I’m so happy I have found another expat (or traveling!) blog! I have recently moved to Sweden from the US, and its so hard to find blogs that are up-to-date and still being posted on. Looking forward to following along with you!
Thanks Samantha! How is life in Sweden? I’ll be following along on your adventures too.
Sweden is great! Of course, an adjustment from home- but its always nice to be somewhere new!
Great tips! My two experiences with severe jet lag was from Chicago to London and Chicago to Hawaii. Hawaii seemed easier to adjust to than London. I can’t remember if I did anything differently. I think maybe I threw myself into the time zone I was in.
I think going West is a bit of an easier transition. Or it could have been the Hawaiian beauty and island life that helped 🙂
Wow! To be young and free. I’m living vicariously through you. You have some amazing journeys under your belt! Stopping by from SITS. Your blog is beautiful! #SITSblogging.
Loving your blog and all the stories! I don’t recall the jet lag when I went to Europe from the United States and coming back. Maybe because I was so excited to be there and it never hit me that I had crossed the ocean!!. #sitsblogging
Thanks Kathia! You’re definitely lucky to not have jet lag. It definitely sucks!
I’ve been flying frequently most months for the last 14 years and still haven’t got this susses yet!
Whilst I’m fortunate enough to fly Business Class for many of my long haul flights whether I manage to sleep or not on the plane is totally random. It does not matter how comfy the seat bed is or how tired I am, the results are quite random.
I do travel with herbal sleeping aids. I don’t use them often but they are there if I’m struggling to sleep at my destination.
Trying to get out and about in daylight at your destination is certainly a good thing to do.
I arrived in Brisbane from the UK last week. I arrived at my hotel at 2am in the morning. I tried to go asleep but couldn’t fall asleep until around 6am (when it was daylight outside). I managed to get up before 11am and spent a lot of the day outside. This certainly helped me and I felt relatively refreshed for the day at work the next day.
You’re lucky to not get bad jet lag. I’m insanely jealous. Daylight is definitely a good thing to have on your side.
Cool blog here Adelina (hope thats the right name). Weird thing is I’ve travelled a lot on flights and never really had this “jet lag”, it’s an odd thing for me really. A beer and a sleep on each flight normally is enough! Safe travels. Jonny
Thanks Jonny! You’re lucky to never have it. I’m insanely jealous. I can never get enough sleep it seems on a flight to over come it.