Last updated on October 29th, 2024
Yes, Pierre travels the world non-stop living the luxurious life. At this point, he has taken hundreds of flights and been around the block enough times to know the best ways to get through crazy jet lag. Let’s back it up a moment shall we? My serious travels started back when I first started living in Thailand in the year 2009. Going there from America or coming back threw my schedule off a whopping 12 hours so I’m well versed on this topic.
You won’t be able to avoid all of the symptoms of jet lag completely but let me tell you the best ways to speed up the recovery process and get you back to focusing on the things that matter in life like drinking and eating.
1. Adopt the Local Time Zone ASAP
When I was new to traveling I didn’t quite understand this part. I made the mistake of sleeping whenever I was tired throughout my travels. This is an amateur mistake that you must avoid at all costs! If you’re going all the way around the world you want to sleep strategically. As soon as you leave to start traveling you want to adopt your destination’s schedule. You can even start this before you leave if you want to get a head start but for me as soon as I get on the plane works out just fine.
Therefore, you want to make sure that you’re awake during the daytime hours in your destination’s time zone and you want to sleep during the destination’s nighttime. This may sound like common sense and it is but when you’re so exhausted from traveling you’re going to want to sleep but trust me, stay strong and do your best to stay awake. If you must nap limit it to less than 20 minutes!
2. Stay Fit
This is good for more reasons than just beating jet lag. Our world is getting fatter and fatter and it’s not just America anymore. Honestly, all of this obesity is quite depressing. Overweight people need to wake up and get in shape for their own health because life is too short and it will be even shorter if you’re overweight.
When it comes to jet lag, it simply comes down to recovery time. When you’re fat and weak you can’t recover from things as quickly as you can if you’re fit. So when it comes to beating jet lag and you’re weak it will take you much longer to get your energy back than if you were in shape like uncle Pierre. Get in shape fatty!
3. Alcohol
A lot of health websites will recommend that you don’t drink when you travel to help reduce your jet lag. However, I have done it both ways. There have been times when I’ve gotten drunk on the plane and passed out for duration of the flight and there have been times when I haven’t drank a drop and at the end of the day I didn’t notice a huge difference when it came to jet lag recovery time.
Going along with the first tip which is adopting the destination’s schedule would be to consider this when you’re drinking alcohol. If you’re going to get drunk and go to sleep on the plane just make sure you do it in the proper time zone. You don’t want to drink during the flight and sleep the whole time and then arrive during the nighttime in your destination because you’ll just be behind an extra day.
Drink to the schedule that you want to adopt!
4. Caffeine
This is almost the same as the last piece of advice. When it comes to caffeine you want to drink coffee and tea strategically. Yes, caffeine can disrupt your sleep patterns but that’s actually what we want in this case. If you’re feeling sleepy and you’re trying to stay awake there is absolutely no problem with having a cup of coffee to jolt you into awareness. Just don’t be an idiot and drink coffee when it’s time to sleep. We can use these stimulants in our favor. Be smart.
Work smart not hard.
5. Water
Water has many benefits to a healthy and happy life. This will improve your state of being in more ways than one, especially during long flights. Over all these years of travel I have realized that I feel absolutely horrible when I don’t drink enough water while flying. The air inside the plane’s cabin is very dry, like a desert. Don’t go a whole flight drinking only alcohol and coffee!
To feel better and to help you recover faster drink lots of water during your travels. This goes along with being fit. When you’re hydrated you will recover faster and you feel better.
These are then the five tips that have helped your uncle Pierre recover as quickly as possible after a long flight. If you’re smart you’ll use my tips to your advantage and before you know it a long flight will not faze you. They say that on average, an hour of time zone change equals a day of recovery time but this does not have to be the case if you use Pierre’s tips!
Good luck all of you travelers! Now go explore the world!