Tips to Help Fight Jetlag

April 26 2011 by Bryson Forbes

iStock_000003326160XSmall.jpgMy brother-in-law is a successful young consultant with a big International firm. As you can likely guess he also travels a lot. His most recent project is a ten week stint in San Francisco, but here's the catch ---he works every Friday in Toronto.

Every Monday morning Chris catches a direct flight from Toronto to San Fran, leaving early Eastern Standard Time; the flight is 5 hours. Thursday afternoons he repeats the process and arrives back in Toronto late in the evening. Friday mornings are especially tough!

I picked his brain recently to understand how he deals with the time changes. After all, during his high pressure, long hour days, he needs to be sharp.
Here are five tips to help fight jet lag:

  1. Trick your body - there is no reason why you cannot stay on EST when you have an itinerary like Chris's. (This will be much more difficult if the change is greater than 5 hours). When Chris arrives in San Fran its 10:00am local time, it`s actually 1:00pm for him - so he has lunch. He eats dinner at about 3:00pm, has a snack after work and tries to get to bed by 9pm local time. The catch? He wakes up 5:00am.
  2. Hydrate - drinking lots of water is always a good idea but especially important when you are traveling. Drinking lots of H2O will help deal with cabin pressure and the dehydration this can cause.
  3. Food - one of the biggest pitfalls when travelling is the slide into poor eating habits. Constantly ordering take out, grabbing a quick meal at the airport--there are traps everywhere. Healthy eating will help you deal with jet lag. Chris packs healthy snacks like fruit, yoghurt and almonds, in order to avoid fast food.
  4. Exercise - nothing can kill your fitness goals like constant travel. It provides you an easy excuse to skip a workout or two and next thing you know you haven't done a thing in a week --which turns into a month --and voila, you are out of shape. Chris tries to workout three times a week and since he stays on EST, he hits the gym at 6:00am on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
  5. Sleep - recharging your batteries is very important to help beat jet lag. There are a number of strategies and choosing the right one can vary from person to person. Chris stays on EST and therefore goes to bed early and gets up early. If you can't or don't want to do that, catching a power nap maybe your best bet. Just make sure you get at least as much sleep as you normally would without travel.

Hope these strategies help you battle jet lag. Let me know if you have any other tips that we can share with your fellow travelers!

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