Travel to Europe: anti-jet lag tips

[SysOpt]

I'm travelling to Paris soon. I live in the central time zone, and normally go to bed at about 2-3am (I do my best work at night). Anyway, what are your tips for adjusting to the new time zone?

France is 7 hours ahead and the flight is 9 hours. I plan to go to bed early each night starting today and wake up early each day with the goal being to go to sleep at 7pm and wake up at 3am on the day I get there, which will be going to sleep at 2am and waking at 10am, Paris time.

Sound good? I know most people probably just take the plunge and adjust when they get there, but because I go to sleep so late normally, I think I'll have a particularly difficult time of it if I don't do the above plan.

-Thanks

[Wombat]

Ok, The best way that I know of is once you arrive there no matter what time, act as if is your normal timezone day. If you get there at 11.00am after a 8 hr+ flight treat it as if it's your normal 11.00am and go to bed at your normal time. NO NAPS!

I've travelled alot between USA and Australia's West coast,14 hrs to Sydney then 5 more to Perth.

Hope this makes sense.


There is some crazy jetlag calculator some place

[wildbuffalo]

Like Wombat said, treat it as if its a normal time/day. Keep same routine. I travel frequently to India (11 & half hours difference), never had any problem with jetlag. Each individual reacts differently. On flight even the flight crew try to keep up with normal activities(meals and lighting in the cabin). One thing I have learned by experience was not to drink hard drinks (couple of beers or wine is fine) as it dehydrates you, and the air in cabin is dry recirculated make it worse. Will you get any cooloff time right when you arive in Paris?
If so treat that as normal time, if you give in to initial effect of jetlag it will get worse.

Wild

[krusty the klown]

Have a nice (ohhh... bad pun http://www.sysopt.com/forum/redface.gif) time in Paris, BTW http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

[Romulus2]

Hate to be different but I've always practised the opposite to Wombat's advice. This site (http://www.powersleep.org/jetlag.htm) recommends As soon as you board, change your watch to the present time at your destination and try to eat and sleep by that time and I've found that works very well for me (maybe I'm just lucky in that I adjust to new situations very fast).

Trying to force your body to behave as if it's still in the place you just left seems to be making matters worse. The human body is stimulated naturally by the things around it (daylight, night air, etc.). Just let it adjust naturally.

I'd recommend following your initial plan to retire slightly earlier each night but perhaps not quite so drastic (bed at 7PM is a bit too early and conflicts too much with your normal routine).

A quote from Dr David O'Connell's book Jetlag: How to Beat It: The important thing is to set it to the body clock of destination - do this 24 hours before you leave, if possible, and set your watch to your destination time as soon as you get on the plane

Have a good flight and don't worry. If you haven't seen Paris before, you're in for a treat. It's one of the greatest places on Earth! And you'll adjust sooner than you think. http://www.sysopt.com/forum/wink.gif

[SysOpt]

Thanks for the tips.. Romulus2: I think wombat and wildbuffalo are saying the same thing as you, that I should immediately get on the new schedule instead of trying to hang on to my current one. If it's 11am in Paris I should act like it's 11am even though it's only 4am to me.

[Romulus2]

Yes, I think I misread it. Who needs jetlag? My brain's fuzzy enough as it is!

Two sites I've found useful in the past: http://paris-anglo.com/ http://www.paris.org/