Top 5 Techniques for Overcoming Jet Lag
One of the harder things to deal with when you are travelling over time zones is overcoming jet lag. Getting your brain and body onto the new time zone as quickly as possible so it doesn’t disrupt your holiday can be difficult. When you are not accustomed to changing your time for more than an hour twice a year, overcoming jet lag can become much harder.
Knowing some best practices to do and also ones to avoid will get you off and running on the right foot for your holiday. These are some of my favourite things to do to while I am travelling.
- Change the time of your phone and watch to the time in your destination once you board the plane. This will get your brain thinking about the new time sooner rather than later.
2. Drink a lot of water. You want to stay as hydrated as possible since air travel increases the rate of dehydration. This is important because dehydration worsens the physical symptoms of jet lag.
3. Stay away from caffeine and alcohol. You want to try and sleep on the plane and both of these can disturb your sleep rather than help it. Plus both of them promote dehydration and you now know why we want to avoid that. 🙂
4. Avoid the temptation to nap once you are at your destination accommodation. Having a nap will make it much harder to get into the new sleep pattern and you will wake up at odd hours ready to get up. You want to get out of your accommodation and explore the neighbourhood around you. Stimulating your brain and body with new experiences and daylight will help you stay away and give you a “second wind”.
5. Stay up as late as you can. Keep the bedtime that you usually have and stay up until then….or at least near that. Go out for dinner, enjoy the atmosphere and take a casual stroll back to your accommodation. Aim for bedtime around 9 or 10pm.
I always find that the time zone difference is harder going west than it is east, but I think it may be different for everyone. If you can do these techniques on your travel day/first day of where you are, you will be able to curb jet lag much more quickly.
Want more great tips like these on overcoming jet lag?
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