After too many uncomfortable long distance flights we have finally found a way to end jet lag.

This is no “stand on one leg upside down while eating pear flavoured yoghurt” kind of trick or old wives’ tale. We have found one key technique to adjust the inner body clock and a few smaller tips to make the process easier.

First of all, the direction you fly in makes a big difference. West is best, east is a beast as they say. Flying from Paris to New York is by far much easier than the other way around. You will be tired in the early evening and wake up a few hours earlier than normal. That is no problem for most people and if you wish to adapt to the local time zone, simply force yourself to stay awake a few hours more in the evening.

Flying towards the east is on the other hand much harder and that is the kind of jet lag we are going to focus on. While you can force yourself to stay awake a bit longer it is close to impossible to force yourself to go to sleep when you are not sleepy. The Internet is filled with weird “tricks” to cure jet lag, like eating peculiar food items, using artificial light to adapt the inner body clock and all kinds of other ideas. We have tried most of them with little success.

What has done the trick for us is skipping sleep to ensure that you will be tired no matter what time of the day it is. Yes, that is essentially the one magical trick. Since most flights are rather uncomfortable this is not too hard to achieve. You may of course relax and take a nap, just make sure that you do not get a proper night’s sleep. The ideal time to arrive at your destination is between 12:00 and 18:00 local time. Earlier than this it will be hard to stay awake until the evening and later than this you will simply not have enough time to get the sleep needed to wake up at the right time. If you arrive around 18:00 go straight to bed as soon as possible. If you arrive earlier, try to stay awake a bit longer. If this is on your way home from a trip this is a splendid opportunity to do all the stuff you don’t really want to do: Unpack, do the laundry, charge the camera and tidy up after the trip. Do this to stay awake, go to bed around 18:00 and wake up the next morning, rested, free of jet lag with fresh clean clothes and all the mess from your trip cleared away!

The perfect time to fall asleep? So that you will wake up 1-2 hours before your regular morning routine. No matter how well you prepare, jet lag still tends to affect you a bit and by getting slightly ahead of your regular wake up time you eliminate the last bit of jet lag.

In addition to this technique we have some minor tips to make the experience more pleasant:

1. Drink a lot of water: No matter how you adapt to jet lag you should give your body the best possible starting point. Being dehydrated will do you no good and the dry air inside aircrafts tends to make you even more dehydrated than usual. Bring an empty bottle to the airport and fill it with water once through security checks. That will save your money, health and the environment.
2. Eat good food: Just like the water it is important to get the energy your body needs. Focus on healthy and nutritious food, this is for your entire body, not just your taste buds. You can also bring food to the airport to save a ton of money.
3. No sleeping pills: Sleeping pills may have the most misleading name we’ve ever seen. They should be named “makes you sleepy and useless, but will do everything but make you sleep” pills. Perhaps we have had some unfortunate experiences, but as far as we can tell they will not make you relax and adapt to new time zones, just make you feel more exhausted.
4. Avoid food and drinks that prevent good sleep: Alcohol, coffee, everything with caffeine and so on. It is fine to take this at the beginning of the journey, but make sure you stop before it may impact your sleep when you arrive at your destination. Caffeine can affect your body for many hours after intake and excessive alcohol intake is obviously a no-no at any time. Last, but not least, remember that these substances tend to make you even more dehydrated, making water even more important.

Do you have any tips to cure jet lag?