Once the excitement of your long-haul flight has passed, and you have safely reached your end destination. You mostly likely will settle down to allow your body clock to get into the same rhythm as your new location. Depending on how far and wide you have travelled this could be easy or exceptionally hard.
Getting over your jet lag as quickly as possible is one way to get some additional value for money from your holiday, or to return to normal as quickly as possible in your home country. Wouldn’t you rather be out enjoying your life, rather than in bed wondering what time it is?
If you’ve ever found yourself in this position you are in the right place, take a look at some of our favourite techs for helping you fight your jet lag blues.
Light Therapy
Conventional light therapy for jet lag requires you to expose yourself to bright light at specific times in the day to reset your body’s sleep clock. Most light therapy solutions revolve around portable light therapy boxes or glasses. However, there are lower-cost options available to you.
Try using a smart bulb to generate red light, which is widely believed to stimulate melatonin production. Low melatonin levels are thought to not only prevent us from falling asleep but also stop us from getting high-quality restful sleep. You can make this hack even cheaper by using lower-cost LED bulbs that produce warm light and can have the same effect. Low-cost bulb retailers like all-lights.co.uk make accessing LED bulb technology faster and easier than ever before.
Start adopting your new time zone early
Most of us know well in advance when we are tacking a long-haul flight. So on the run-up to your departure date why not try and get in sync with the new time zone that you will be entering. It may sound hard, but its easily accomplished in a few simple steps:
- Change the time on your phone to the same time zone as your destination
- Make sure that you have a fully functional set of black-out blinds or curtains
- Shift any appointments that you may have to fit your temporary new schedule
The key to this technique working is to stick to your alarm, hitting snooze will simply mean you stay hardwired to your current time zone and you will have a broken night’s sleep.
Avoid alcohol and (maybe) caffeine
Whilst having an alcoholic beverage in the airport or plane might be fun, if you want to cut down on the time you are out of commission with jet lag, we suggest keeping away from the bar. This is because alcohol can disrupt our quality of sleep and cause dehydration.
Caffeine, on the other hand, is more complicated, in 2015 researchers at the University of Colorado were able to prove the widely accepted idea that drinking coffee in the evening stops you from falling asleep. Or to be more scientific consuming caffeine at night delays human circadian rhythm. Depending on where you are going this could be a help or a hindrance. If you are travelling east drinking coffee could make your jetlag worse, if you travel West, it could make your jetlag better.
Infographic created by Alpine Limousine, Most Trusted Executive Chauffeur Service in New York City