Travelling long haul brings new exciting cuisine, historical and interesting culture, beautiful beaches and glorious weather (hopefully!). It does also bring the dreaded jet lag that can really make the first few days of your holiday unpleasant. Here are my top tips that help reduce jetlag for me.
1) When booking your flight consider your airline, aircraft and flight times. Your Travel Specialist can recommend good quality airlines & times that will ensure your journey is comfortable and in a modern aircraft. Sure you might save £££’s travelling with a cheaper airliner that uses aircraft from 1992 but you’ll lose more time out of your holiday in recovering from Jet Lag.
2) If you are travelling to Australia or New Zealand, I would always recommend a stop over. Firstly it’s two holidays in one as most airlines will allow you to stop over with no cost to your airfare. Secondly, it really does help with the Jet Lag and means when you arrive you’ll be slightly more with it and your jet lag recovery time will be reduced.
3) In the day’s leading up to your flight, relax your schedule as much as you can. Adapt your eating patterns to your destination as much as you can as this will help reduce the jetlag when you arrive.
4) The day before you fly can be busy so try and clear this day as much as possible. Try and get everything done as much as possible in advance. If you have a night flight then take the afternoon of work rather than do a full day and fly off.
5) Get a good night’s sleep the night before you fly. If you have a morning departure that results in a very early start to get to the airport, consider staying at the airport the night before to give you a better nights sleep.
6) When you get on board the aircraft switch your watch to your destinations time and start adapting to that time zone.
7) The common consensus is to avoid alcohol but, come on, most people like a drink to celebrate and there is nothing wrong with that, but make sure you drink plenty of water throughout the flight to keep hydrated.
8) Exercise regularly during the flight to keep the blood moving. If you sit rigidly in your seat for the full duration of the flight you will suffer when you arrive.
9) On arrival keep with the new time zone. If it’s daytime get out and about in the sun as this will help with the jet lag. Take a short nap if necessary but get out in the sun.
10) Say no to Sleeping Pill’s or Caffeine. These will prolong the jet lag recovery time and you will feel worse in the long wrong.
