First things first, jetlag is a biatch. It’s bad enough flying home from a holiday, let alone experiencing the interrupted nights and super early mornings! Not to mention falling asleep at 8pm some nights, 6pm the next and so on.
One morning at around 3am while struggling with my recent jetlag, I found myself researching jetlag! I was curious - what causes jetlag? Why am I so exhausted then can't sleep when I've tried to get into a good sleeping pattern?
Turns out, for every timezone crossed is a day that it takes to get over jetlag. So, for my recent trip back from Rome, I crossed over 8 timezones, so that's an estimated 8 days to get over jetlag. Eight days! It's also worse if you travel from West to East, so us Australians are always going to be worse off when coming home from a holiday somewhere like Europe! No wonder they say you need to go on a holiday after your holiday. As not many of us have the luxury of taking another holiday straight after our first, I've researched some tried and trusted methods for getting over jetlag stat.
1. Adjust your sleep cycle gradually Experts say that by gradually adjusting your sleep cycle in the days before you leave, you'll have a better chance to kick that jetlag sooner. It's also a good idea to get as much sleep as possible in the days before your journey as jetlag will hit you worse if you're sleep deprived.
2. Try to sleep at normal times when you land If you're landing in the morning, as tempting as it might be to have a nap, don't! We finally arrived home in Sydney at about 9am after originally landing in Melbourne from Rome at 5.30am and I was exhausted. Instead of going straight to bed like I desperately wanted, we did as many things as we could, before I inevitably crashed at about 4pm... which is why it took me a really long time to get over my jetlag, so don't do what I did! Try to hang in there until about 9 or 10pm, whenever is close enough to your usual bedtime.
3. Soak up some natural light Natural light is one of the best things that tells your body that it's daytime. So, when you're exhausted in the middle of the day, get outside and soak up some rays. We got outside, ran some errands and it really helped.
Now, the other common jet lag avoiding tip that comes up is to avoid alcohol... but how can you say no to free wine on the plane?! It's one of my favourite airplane perks. My airplane ritual, no matter if I'm flying domestic or international is to order a glass of bubbles and pop on a movie.
Safe to say, I did not get over my jetlag quickly. It definitely took my the full 8 days and I was exhausted! Maybe next time I'll try some additional jet lag hacks.
What are your tried and trusted ways to get over jet lag quickly?
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