I will be taking a very long flight overseas, it will be between 6-8 hours, and I was just wondering, if there were a way to avoid jet lag, and any other tips anyone might have?

6 to 8 hours is a walk in a park....32 hours is what kills ya. To avoid Jet Lag I either (a) sleep or (b ) drink beer, both options are good.

 

And if you find you get motion sickness, eat bananas, taste the same coming up as it does going down.

 

Cheers  :lol:

Actual time on a plane has little effect on jetlag it is time difference that gets you. Where are you going to/from?   If I fly 8 hours south to Brazil the 1 hour time change won't affect me but if I fly 8 hours to Germany the 6 hour time difference will cause significant jetlag.  6-8 hours on a plane is nothing these days.  10 or over is a very long flight  If there was a way to avoid jetlag someone would have told us by now lol.  There is also a very big difference between being tired after a flight and jetlag.

 

As for avoiding the overall effects of flying

Drink plenty of water

Don't drink alcohol

Personally I refrain from eating large meals on the plane

Get up and stretch

Be well rested before the flight (unless it is a red eye and you want to be up all night)

 

Upon arrival do not listen to what your body wants to do but force yourself to adapt to the new time zone as soon as possible.  Failure to do so can result in a lot of sleepless nights or early mornings lol.

When going NY to London, I started using Nature's Made melatonin, the low dose one.  If you don't have it, eat a big turkey dinner or sandwich.  I do that for a couple days.  I take that just before I (attempt) go to sleep at a regular hour.

 

Ya, definitely get up and walk around every hour.  My wife doesn't do that then she complains on landing that her legs are a sleep and muscles stiff as I try to drag her as fast as I can walk to customs.

All I can say is, stay out of the water.

I haven't gotten the flight details,  yet but essentially someplace in the east coast of the us to dublin ireland.

Then your flight will actually be around 5 1/2- 6 1/2 hours depending on tailwinds.  Dublin can even be done in 5 flat.  It can be shorter than flying from Newark to LA....

See if you can catch the day flight.  You lose the day but you land, have a meal and go to bed and wake up the next day feeling great.

If you're on a night flight from the US to Europe - I always find those flights the worst for jet lag, even if you have a few hours kip during the journey. As the above poster said, you're looking at around 5-6 hours depending on the winds, Dublin isn't that far away from the US, atleast it feels like it isn't. I'd give it around five and a half hours flight time to Ireland.

If you're on a night flight from the US to Europe - I always find those flights the worst for jet lag, even if you have a few hours kip during the journey. As the above poster said, you're looking at around 5-6 hours depending on the winds, Dublin isn't that far away from the US, atleast it feels like it isn't. I'd give it around five and a half hours flight time to Ireland.

 

Exactly and by the time you factor 30 minutes for climbout, another hour for food service and then food service 60 minutes before landing and a 30 minute descent you MAY get 3 hours of sleep on a night flight.  Even when I do first and have my meal before boarding at MOST you get 4 hours sleep

If you arrive in the morning, don't take a nap. Just stay up, do whatever you came to do, and go to bed at local bedtime. I find that works when flying from the east coast to Europe. You will still be a little off, but it won't be so bad, at least it isn't for me.

As a veteran of many 8-12 hour flights can i suggest flying Business class?  Better leg room, better food and the chance for sleep.  Avoid the Chengdu Plateau and the Bay of Bengal (kind of eliminates travelling to Asia from Europe) always hit turbulence it can be pretty...uncomfortable.

 

 

And if you find you get motion sickness, eat bananas, taste the same coming up as it does going down.

 

Ditto, for peanut butter.  :wink:

 

Cheers  :smile:

In a past life, I flew often from the western US (Mountain time zone) to the UK and Europe.  For me the trip east was always easiest.  As arrivals were typically early morning, I'd try to rest as much as possible on the flight(s) - sleep isn't always possible, but at least let yourself rest - and once I arrived, I'd resist any temptation to nap the first day there, toughing it through to a normal bedtime as determined by local time.  The first day could be long, but by the second I was usually pretty well acclimated and ready to go.

 

Headed west (back home), well... I never found the right trick.  For some reason, I'd always be days trying unsuccessfully to reset the internal clock.

 

 

Good luck and have a good trip,

 

Scott

6-8 hours is nowhwere near jet lagginess.

I haven't gotten the flight details,  yet but essentially someplace in the east coast of the us to dublin ireland.

 

Take it from someone who has nearly a million actual miles on United alone; that's a walk in the park. I am going to go against the advice of some here and tell you that with hundreds of trips to the U.K. over the last 35 years of so, heading east from the East Coast of the U.S. to there is not all that challenging. The most important variable, in my opinion, is not the duration of the flight in this case, but your departure and arrival time.

 

Typically, flights out of the east coast depart somewhere between 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. to London, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, etc. Arrival times are anywhere from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. depending on destination, departure time and time of year.

 

If you arrive at some ungodly hour in the morning, like 7 a.m., go to your hotel, have a nice breakfast, stay up until 11 or so, and then take a two or three hour nap. Walk around, visit the pub (or whatever) have dinner and call it a night at about 10. I learned to do that after trying the "stay up til bed time" for 5 years or so, and found that I was exhausted for three or four days. My method allowed me to hit the ground running the next day and not suffer lag for days on end.