How I Escaped Jet Lag – and How You Can Too!
As some of you may or may not know, I’ve just had a 2 week quick trip back to the UK to head into Energise HQ and work with Callum to plan our year ahead (very exciting). Now, normally I suffer jet lag pretty badly – lots of passing out at 5pm and waking up bright and breezy at 4am. Not good. Especially when you have travelled to work AND socialise.
But this time around I managed to almost entirely escape the lag once I got back to Sydney. It was quite excellent. Now, these are not scientifically proven techniques and in the large part the results may have been quite random. But nonetheless, I’ll tell you exactly what I did and then try to generalise it out to something you could do too!
Ross’ Jet Lag Escape Plan
- The first thing I did when I got back was…I met up with friends. We headed out to my favourite coffee house (Don Adan) had some beverages and breakfast (containing chillis!) and talked about good times, music and whats been going on in our lives. It was nice and it totally took my mind off the fact that three hours earlier I was at the end of a 23 hour flight.
- After breakfast we all pootled over to another friends place in Queenscliff for some relaxing on his balcony in the sunshine, sweet music and more chatter. Nice. This was good because I had never been over to his place before so it was all new. I think doing new things is important because it prevents you from falling into a comfy-zone where sleep can easily kick in. He also had a cool little cat too which kept me entertained for quite a long time…
- After that we all headed to the beach. I bascially chucked myself into the sea and got battered by waves for a good hour or so. It was pretty cool.
- But the next thing that kept me going was getting myself stung by a jellyfish! It was only a bluebottle so it was not too harsh and in fact, it wiped out any creeping sleep that was building up!
- After the swelling and stinging had gone, I got myself home and settled in for an afternoon of cricket. Now, normally you might say that would be the one thing that would guarantee sleep – but this was a very special match!
- The cricket took me through to 10:30pm, which was nothing short of a miracle, and after hitting the sack I slept solidly through to 7:30am and voila! Jet lag gone!
Now, there are a lot of things in there that are obviously not possible for everyone. Going to the beach for example. Oh, and getting stung by a jellyfish on purpose is not recommended!
BUT – before you think this is a useless post, here are my thoughts on what ANYONE can do to help aliviate their lag:
- Be active! Don’t (however tempting it is) just chill at home and creep off to bed. You’ve just got to ignore the tiredness, it does go away…
- Get sunshine! This is VITAL. The sun’s rays hitting your eyes produces the chemicals/hormones in your brain that regulate sleep. If you are getting plenty of daylight then your brain will hold back on sending the ‘bedtime’ message until it gets dark. If you don’t get sunshine then you might want to consider a bright light to help your body get the summer feeling.
- Do something out of the ordinary! I found it very useful to stay away from slipping straight back into a normal routine when I got back. Even if it just for a few hours – getting outside and going somewhere new was a great idea.
- See friends! Friends keep you awake, they talk and move and stop you from dozing! Just surround yourself with some of your favourite people and shoot the breeze for a bit. Works wonders.
- Watch what you eat and drink! This is vital. Crikey, I can almost hear you groan! Seriously though, if you want to keep yourself going and stave off the lag then it is vital that you give your body the fuel it needs after the sleep-deprived, nutrition-deprived, daylight-deprived flight. Personally, on that first day back I consumed:
- 4 litres of green drink with alkaline water
- 3 extra green capsules
- a multivitamin with minerals
- 3 tablespoons of Udo’s Choice
- several cups of green tea
- salad & veggies
- and I avoided all of the things you know to avoid such as booze and coffee
So there you go. Get outside, do fun stuff, see friends and eat well. Easy!
