Want to beat jet lag? Anyone who has experienced jet lag first-hand knows how quickly it can take the buzz off of a holiday. The Mayo Clinic defines jet lag as a ‘temporary sleep problem that can affect anyone who quickly travels across multiple time zones.’ After years of battling, I just may have cracked the jet lag code—at least for my family.
Welcome back to ‘Found’. A series of practical posts about how I do things, travel-wise.
It’s January 2nd, and I’m 38,000 feet in the air. 600 miles into a 3,662-mile trip. Six hours and 26 minutes to go. The Flight Path display is taunting me with its low-tech smugness. That little white plane appears to be stuck over the Atlantic Ocean. I have lots of time on my hands.
Holiday Madness
We are on our way back to Washington DC after having spent the holidays in the UK and Finland. We started our journey yesterday from dark, snowy Kittilä in northern Finland, then overnighted in dark, snowy Helsinki. A 5am alarm woke us for a flight we nearly missed due to COVID-testing hassles, lengthy and disorganized security lines, and overall holiday madness.
Our layover in London has us racing from Terminal 3 to Terminal 5. For anyone not familiar with Heathrow Airport, those two terminals are so far away from each other that they require passengers to exit the airport and take a bus transfer on real roads!
At last, I sink into seat 35A, British Airways flight 217, and take a deep breath. We made it. I’m about to order a drink to celebrate but remember that I’m having a dry January. Ugh, is it January? Instead, I think about what awaits me at home. 1. Pick up dogs. 2. Food shop. 3. Unpack. 4. Laundry. 5. Laundry. 6. Laundry. 7. Jet lag.
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Ugh. Jet Lag.
If there’s anything I’ve learned from years of travel, many spent with small kids in tow, it’s tricks to beating jet lag. If you already have successful tactics in place, no need to read further. But perhaps I have something new to add to your process? Maybe you have a tip or two I can add to mine?
So how do I beat the inevitable jet lag that threatens to derail my exciting days of laundry ahead?
Read on for five steps I use to beat jet lag, as well as some useful tips when traveling with kids. If jet lag were a person, it would be my teenage daughter; irritating, unpredictable, exhausting, and every so often, a total joy.
Beat jet lag. The step-by-step process.
I certainly haven’t reinvented any wheels here, as many of these tactics are common sense. But this process works for us. Fair warning, it’s a Draconian approach. The key to beating jet lag is following these five steps in order, not picking and choosing one or two.
Words, like AVOID and RESIST, will pop up often. As will prompts for you to sleep or stay awake when your body firmly disagrees with that decision. As my friends and family know, I treasure my circadian rhythms and am not happy when they are disrupted. Hence the attention to details that might otherwise seem unimportant.
Beat Jet Lag. Step 1:
Set all clocks to the time at your destination.
As many globe-trotting travelers already know, this is the crux of beating jet lag. I convince my mind that it is a different time than it thinks it is. Trick the mind and the body will follow. Don’t quote me on this, I’m not a doctor. It does take practice, however. Here are some tips to help.
Tip A: Change the time zone on your phone before taking off. How many times have I settled uncomfortably into my narrow middle seat to play music and been confronted with my iPhone home screen displaying the ‘wrong’ time? Too many.
It’s just like that scene in Somewhere in Time with Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour. Remember that 80s film? The part where Reeve finds a modern-day coin in his pocket and is dramatically pulled back to real-time from 1912, and away from the love of his life? Ok, you don’t know that movie? Trust me, it’s a tear-jerker.
Tip B: Don’t look at the plane clock. Ever. I mean it. Flight Path is your enemy—avoid it at all costs.
Tip C: Never refer to the time at your place of origin in order to make a point. Resist encouraging your kids to eat by saying, “At home, it’s dinner time.” Or, to get to sleep by pointing out, “It’s really the middle of the night right now.” The faster you trick your brain the better. Trick your kids’ brains while you’re at it. Well, try to.
As an aside, I’m writing about legitimate jet lag here. EST to PST barely counts. Daylight savings doesn’t count at all. Unless you are under two years old. Or a dog.
Beat Jet Lag. Step 2:
For overnight flights, eat dinner before boarding.
Or, as soon as possible. Whether you’re on a 6pm or 10pm flight, eat first so that you can go to bed the moment the wheels are up. Sleep experts like me can doze off well before take-off, but that takes practice. Don’t overdo the liquid intake. You’ll thank me later.
Tip: Many sources tell travelers to avoid alcohol to help beat jet lag. This may be true, but until today I’ve yet to attempt it. Damn you, dry January. Have you ever taken a 12+ hour flight with toddlers? I rest my case. Alcohol wins.
If you are on a daytime flight, stay true-ish to your daytime routine. I’m not implying you’re a couch potato but binge-watch even more TV. Ted Lasso, the Jimmy Chin documentary, or re-runs of Law & Order. There are at least ten episodes of Arrested Development on most long-haul flights. Watch them all. Anyone who doesn’t like that show is not my people. Eat, take a nap, read a book, repeat. Do not look at a clock! Stay mainly awake. Skip to Step Four.
Tip: Use caffeine as needed. It’s your new BFF.
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Beat Jet Lag. Step 3:
Go to sleep.
But first, pee. You don’t think you have to pee? You do. Then settle in. My carry-on always has an easy-to-access sleep kit. That’s an embarrassing thing to admit, but it’s for the greater good, I suppose.
My sleep kit includes the following items: an eye mask, earplugs, socks, hand sanitizer, melatonin, and lip balm. I also now own a neck pillow, having spent much of my life ridiculing people who use them. If no blankets are provided, and these days that is typical, I keep a light jacket or a sweater on hand. I always get cold on flights, even when flying to warm-weather destinations. In fact, especially when flying to warm-weather destinations.
Don’t say, “But I don’t go to bed at 630pm”. Don’t even think it.
Tip: If you take a sleeping pill or herbal supplements, like Ambien or Melatonin, wait until wheels up. I can’t stress this enough. No one wants to be heavily sedated when switching planes due to mechanical failure. Take it from someone who’s been there.
Be sure to stay asleep when it kicks in. Resist the urge to watch another episode of Arrested Development. Someone I know once took a sleeping pill and decided to wake up for dinner. She may or may not have poured a glass of white wine into her lap, spoiled the ending of her husband’s thriller, and then proceeded to walk the aisles with a pink eye mask on her head and an ill-placed wine stain.
Beat Jet Lag. Step 4:
Wake up and have breakfast.
We all know it’s the middle of the night when those perky flight attendants come around with their cart of coffee, OJ, and breakfast sandwiches. Pretend it isn’t.
Tip: Those who are really forward-thinking might pre-pack a sesame bagel and cream cheese or yogurt parfait for this step. I don’t, but I should. Plane dinners are pretty awful. Plane breakfasts make plane dinners look like Michelin-starred meals.
Beat Jet Lag. Step 5:
Stay the course.
It’s all too easy to get home, or to the hotel and fall into a dead sleep, regardless of how many hours were spent sleeping on the plane. Plane sleep is restless sleep. Carts bang, kids scream, lights flash, and the PA system tortures us at unfathomable decibel levels and at the worst possible moments.
When the flight attendants have finally finished their diatribe on how to use a seatbelt (still?), oxygen mask placement, and the protocol for the ‘unlikely event of a water landing’, I breathe a sigh of relief. Then they start up again—in Mandarin.
Prepare to stay awake until a ‘normal’ bedtime. Normal-ish at least, give or take an hour. This will help realign those circadian rhythms in the days ahead. When kids are involved, there are a few tactics that have worked well for us.
Tip A: If your destination has a swimming pool or a beach nearby, use it as a tool to stimulate. Cool water will invigorate the senses, and help prolong sleep. No pool? A bathtub will do. Stick to your destination’s meal schedule as much as possible.
Tip B: Stand your ground on the kids’ bedtime. Explain that while they might not feel sleepy that it’s still time to go to bed. Encourage them to lay in bed with their eyes closed and not worry about falling asleep. This certainly didn’t sit well with our kids right away and took many trips to truly enforce. But eventually, they got it. It’s the very technique I use, too.
Someone out there is sneering right now in disbelief. They are saying, ‘My kids, are too young to do that.’ They aren’t. It won’t go smoothly though. It’s all about long-term training to really beat jet lag. It takes time.
Don’t worry if the kids don’t or can’t adapt to the plane schedule. Getting them reasonably close will still help. Our daughter used to fall asleep the minute the landing gear was deployed on every long-haul trip. Her eyes would be wide open for 11.5 hours of a 12-hour flight. She would then fall into a slumber so deep a rocket launch couldn’t rouse her. Good times.
Repeat. Repeat. And Repeat.
This might not be documented anywhere, but I believe there is muscle memory in regards to beating jet lag. I say this because in all the years we’ve traveled back and forth to Asia, and to the UK, we increasingly got better at coping with it. There have been trips where we have virtually not jet-lagged at all. Sometimes the pure excitement of reaching our destination will keep severe jet lag at bay.
One of my closest friends in Tokyo was also our next-door neighbor. Let’s call her Margaret. (Actually, Margaret is her real name, but I doubt she reads my posts so all good.) Margaret and her family would return to Tokyo from New York and allow jet lag to take its natural course.
We could hear her kids at night, as our bedroom wall aligned with their living room wall. Japanese-dubbed Dora The Explorer would be playing on an endless loop, her kids singing along wide-eyed and bushy-tailed like it was 2pm, not 2am. It took them weeks to beat jet lag, shaving off an hour each day, max. We hardly saw them. That Dora song is still in my head.
To Beat Jet Lag, Just Follow the Rules
I’m now 6.5 hours into my 8-hour flight. I haven’t napped, read, or watched Arrested Development. I’ve been staring at Flight Path for three hours, and I’m pretty convinced the plane icon is stuck over Newfoundland. The man next to me is sound asleep and I can’t get past him to use the restroom. I haven’t followed any of my own rules. Writing about beating jet lag may not be the best way to go about beating jet lag.
But, if this article helps even one person cope, I’ll go to bed happy. If I can sleep, that is.
Maybe I’ll order a drink. Wait, it’s still January. Ugh.
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My favorite blog of all time! A much anticipated (and vicarious) monthly holiday through words and photos.
Loved this so much! Such great tips. And so many fun nuggets here…of course the reference to Somewhere in Time, my fave.
Leaving for Finland one week from tomorrow, and I am going to follow the rules outlined above. I’ll let you know how that goes!
Hi Nancy! Thank you for the comment. Where in Finland will you be? We were there last month, in both Helsinki and Lapland. Would love to hear about your upcoming trip! -Jamie