Acclimatise slowly
“In the past we crossed time zones very slowly, so when we arrived on a ship in Australia, we’d slowly moved onto the destination time zone. Now there is no time to do that at all, and acclimatisation really is the key.”
The only way to do it quickly is artificially, by ‘hacking’ your sleep cycle. And this begins in the week before you fly, reducing the difference between the time zone you’re leaving behind and the time zone you’re arriving in.
“In the days before you leave, make sure you carefully schedule your light, sleep, wake and food timings. Basically, you advance your clock. On the first night, you sleep from 11pm to 7am, on the second 10pm to 6am and so on, until you’re going to bed at 7pm and getting up at 3am. Yes it sounds awful, but now the difference between your bedtime and your destination’s bedtime is much closer together.”
This is obviously easier to do if you’re flying from, say, New York to the UK, and the difference is five hours. If it’s a bigger distance - say Europe to New Zealand - it’s quite impractical to get yourself to the stage where your morning starts at midnight or 1am.
“Don’t get too bogged down with the exact numbers. The key thing is to get closer, that’s all.”
Match your sleeping times with when you eat. So if you wake up at 3am, have breakfast and start your day then. If you’re going to bed at 7pm make sure you put on dark glasses and avoid light in the late afternoon so your body starts to wind down, believing it’s nighttime.
There are a few jet lag apps you can try to help this process, Jet Lag Rooster and Entrain, for example.
Make the best of your sleep space
Now we’re on the flight, it’s time to make the most of it.
“Flying is generally a stressful experience physiologically,” Dr Meadows says. “You’re in a pressurised cabin, there isn’t as much oxygen, there's noise - it’s a constant low level stress that causes travel fatigue.
“So the healthier you can be on your flight the better. And crucially you need to manage the light. If it’s a night flight, you want to be sleeping on the plane. We’ve already synchronised your body clock - so now create your own good sleep area. Tell the person next to you that you’re planning to sleep and ask them not to let the crew wake you for food.
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