How to deal with Jet Lag

and sustain your energy while traveling

Tiny hostel nest in Utrecht, Netherlands, where I spent my first night in a new timezone, March 2022.

You’ve invested in the tickets, spent time planning your itinerary, and now flown across several time zones to arrive at your destination. You are sluggish and groggy from a restless flight in a cramped seat, it feels like the middle of the night to you, but it’s bright daylight in this new place. You don’t want to waste any more of your trip on jet lag.

Your circadian rhythm, or internal clock, is what the natural cycle of sleeping and waking that occurs over a 24 hour period is called. It is supported by a schedule of things that you do on the regular each day, when you eat, exercise, perform nighttime routines, but the mostly it is regulated by your exposure to light. When we travel abroad, the timing of this external prompt changes due to the lost hours flying to our destination and a new orientation to the sun.

This is especially problematic when traveling east, because traveling against the sun’s progress puts the daylight at our arrival in conflict with best practices for adjustment to the new timezone.

This article will help you understand the physical mechanisms that keep your circadian rhythms functioning well under normal circumstances, and tell you how to ease your adjustment and make the most of your time abroad.