Jet Lag
Simple jet lag gets even worse when flight delays and cancellations leave you sitting in the airport long after you should have departed.
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If you've ever crossed more than three time zones in a day, you probably know the feeling: You wake up at 4:00 am, fully alert, and spend a long hour in bed, wishing you could fall asleep. But when the alarm goes off at 7:30, it feels like the middle of the night.
Sorry, there's no simple solution to jet lag. Moreover, what works for some people doesn't work for others. Here are some of the best approaches, many of which lend themselves to being used in combination with one another.
Get a head start. Figure out what time it is where you're headed, and several days in advance, start shifting your schedule, an hour a day, in that direction. If you're flying from New York to France, it's five or six hours later (depending on daylight savings time) at your destination. Try to get to bed an hour earlier, and get up an hour earlier, each day.
Take care of yourself on the plane. Exercise and stay hydrated while on the plane. These two bits of advice show up on everybody's "how to avoid jet lag" lists. We've never found any actual scientific evidence that exercise and hydration specifically reduce jet lag, but they'll indisputably keep you feeling better. And that, in turn, may reduce the feeling of jet lag.
Drinking one eight-ounce cup of water for each hour in the air is a good antidote the the dry environment of an airplane cabin. You're not going to get served water that often, so bring your own water bottle. (You can refill it in the plane's galley.) Alcohol, coffee, and other caffeinated beverages do not substitute for water; in fact, they further dehydrate you. It's best to avoid them entirely; otherwise, drink even more water.
Exercise options are limited on a plane, but each time you head for the bathroom (you are drinking all that water, aren't you?), you can walk up and down the aisle a few extra times, and fit in a few stretches while waiting in the bathroom queue.
Melatonin. This over-the-counter dietary supplement resets your internal body clock. Some elaborate schedules have been published for using melatonin, but many people simply use it as a sleeping pill their first two or three nights abroad. Take a pill a half hour before you go to bed. If you're one of the lucky people for whom melatonin works, it will help you sleep through the night; then the next day you’re fully awake.
But it doesn't work for everyone, and a few people report that it actually keeps them awake. Best to experiment before your trip.
There's no uniform agreement about dosage. You're likely to find both 1 mg and 3 mg pills. The smaller size is enough for many people, and also allows you to start with more, then taper off: Take three 1-mg pills the first night after you arrive, two pills the next next, then one pill each night for a few more nights until your body is adjusted.
And be forewarned about one harmless side-effect: Many people have unusually vivid and often quite entertaining dreams when using melatonin.
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Sleeping Pills. If melatonin doesn't work for you, ask your doctor to prescribe a sleeping pill to help you get through the first two or three nights in your new time zone.
Sunlight and Activity. You will invariably adjust to a new time zone more quickly if you spend large portions of your first day or two outside, in the sunlight. If you're active, rather than sprawled on a beach, you'll adapt even faster.
A recent study suggests specifically that exposing the back of your knees to bright light will affect the body's circadian clock, and speed up the process of adjusting to a new time zone. The physiology still isn't understood, but photoreceptors there seem to play a critical role in the body's perception of day and night.
Don't nap on arrival. The bed looks awfully inviting when you arrive in Italy after a night with only two hours of sleep. Avoid it if you can. Get outside in the sun, engage in some mental and physical activity, and stay awake till evening if you can.
Time will cure this problem. Even if you can't do any of this, rest assured that your second night abroad will be much better than the first. It may be as much as a week before your body is 100% adjusted to the new time zone, but within 48 hours, jet lag will be little more than a minor irritation.