Arrival day: nap or push through?

Jumping time zones is hard on your mind or body. A few things affect how well you adjust:

• how well you’ve prepared beforehand

• how well you hydrate on the flight

• how well you sleep on the flight

• the time of day that you arrive at your destination

• luck

Prepare beforehand

This tip comes from Mark at Wolters World, which is one of my favorite travel sites. If you’re in the U.S. and flying east, go to bed a little earlier each night, starting a few days or weeks before you leave. This makes the time difference less dramatic.

It worked well for us the last time we flew internationally, although it probably wasn’t the only factor. Even if this doesn’t solve all your jet lag, being especially well-rested beforehand will only help.

Hydrate on your flight and sleep (if possible)

Stay hydrated on your flight and try to rest if it’s an overnight flight. Zolpidem tartrate, diphenhydramine (the active ingredients in Ambien and Benadryl) or melatonin might help you sleep, or it might not; see how it works at home first. You don’t want to try something new at 35,000 feet above the Atlantic.

I’m especially shy about using diphenhydramine, because it makes a small percentage of people hyperactive. You haven’t known desperation until you are trying to calm down a maniacal toddler on a cross-country train trip. Remember the final scene of The Incredibles, when Jack gets angry? It’s like that.

Bottom line: check with your doctor before you take any new medication, even if it’s an over-the-counter med, and test it before you travel.

Time your arrival

When my husband and I last flew to Rome, our flight left just after midnight and we arrived about 9 p.m. local time, which worked great because we went straight to bed and slept most of the night. The first full day, then, was just a regular day: no problems.

The time before that was different. We left around 7 p.m. and landed in Heathrow mid-afternoon. Our connecting flight to Manchester was overbooked, so we waited several hours for a plane that had seats available. We didn’t get to Manchester until supper time, and we didn’t get to our hostel for a couple hours after that. Even our teenagers were sluggish.

The typical advice is to take caffeine pills or somehow will yourself to push through that first full day so that your body immediately adjusts to the new time zone. To that our bodies immediately said, “No way.”

Instead, we all crashed as soon as we checked into our hostel. We woke up briefly around midnight local time, slept most of the night, and were up early (in the “4” hour) the next morning. But by the end of that second day we were on the local schedule.

Luck

Despite your best efforts and preparation, you might still feel groggy (OK, awful) by late afternoon on the day you arrive. Suddenly you can’t think straight or perform simple tasks, and the world’s noise gets quieter as your eyes close no matter how hard you try to keep them open.

Even if you had vowed to make it through the whole first day, sleep-deprived is no way to start a vacation. If you go out feeling this way, you’re likely to:

• leave your wallet on a counter, or

• leave your wallet someplace that someone could nab it from your back pocket, or

• forget your way back to your hostel or hotel, or

• forget the name of your hostel or hotel, or

• catch whatever germs are floating around locally, to which you have no immunity, so you get sick (I’ve done this and cannot recommend it for a fun time)

Just give in and take a nap. Set an alarm for two hours, then do your best to get up and stay active ‘til local bedtime. If you sleep for several hours instead, you’ll work toward the local schedule over the next couple days.

The unspoken option: don't acclimate

Very few people talk about this choice, but it's one that we've found to work the best, especially when you're returning from your trip and need to return to work right away.

Don't fully acclimate to the new time zone.

It sounds like a travesty, but here's how it works. Say you travel from the East Coast of the U.S., where it's 9 a.m. (noon), to Vienna, where it's 3 p.m. (mid-afternoon). You do whatever you need to do to get through the first day, but on the second day, by mid-day local time, you're exhausted.

Get a couple hours' sleep and, afterward, head back out.

Yes, it means that you might wake up extremely early by local time zones (on a recent trip, we were often dressed and ready to start our day by 5:30 a.m., which was ideal for getting photos of non-crowded sites).

It also means that because you never fully integrate to the local time zone, you're comfortable sleeping in stints of a couple to a few hours, whenever you feel tired. If your travel schedule permits erratic sight-seeing, this is ideal; if it doesn't, it quickly becomes a problem.

But when you return from your trip, you're often able to minimize the effects of jet lag and get back to "regular" life, because your schedule was never dramatically different.

Each time is different

Realize that this time might be different from last time. What worked before might not work this time, and it’s no reflection on your personal self-worth. Just listen to your body regardless of other “input,” and have a great trip.