Travel travel travel...

[etakyma]

So I purchased my tickets to Beijing for November. I hate massive travel that takes one through more than six time zones. To get there, my flight leaves Boston at 6:30am, a three hour layover in San Francisco, and arrives in Beijing around 4:30pm THE NEXT DAY. - but only about 18-20 hours will have elapsed in real time

Going home is even more wacky. I leave Beijing at 1:30pm and arrive home (after almost three hour layover in San Francisco) at almost 8pm THE SAME DAY. But it still would have taken about 19 hours to get there. So with the wacky stretchy time thing - Beijing I think is twelve hours different - I'm going to be all messed up.

Good times.

Anyone have surefire cures for jet-lag?

Comments

[zorb]

I don't have any good strategies for the first trip, but for the second, you might not be all that messed up. When I flew back to SF from Sydney, I arrived earlier than I left on the same day (haha) and was tired from travel, but totally fine the next day after going to bed at my normal time.

[ksl2025.livejournal.com]

They say it best to keep as 'normal' a schedule as you can. So if you get home when the sun is coming up, do what you normally do in the morning. It is supposed to help reset the clock. It won't make up for the realization that it is the wrong day, but it should help you feel a bit more in sync with your environment.

[grouchyoldcoot.livejournal.com]

There are drugs, if you can get 'em. Rozerem is the trade name of a melatonin analog that gets used for this; over-the-counter melatonin will also help. The claim is that you want to take it on the flight over, at the time when you want to fall asleep in the new time zone, and then fall asleep when it makes you sleepy. It's strong enough to overcome your circadian clock and establish a new rhythm. I used this strategy when I went to Taiwan and I think it was a big help.