how to beat JETLAG

I love being here in New York, up and running at 6:30 every morning. Not necessarily a weird thing since every evening at 9PM I’m pretty much ready to hop right back into bed. Yep, you got it. Jetlag.

Liesbeth and I are always very jealous of anyone flying business class while we walk on through to our economy seats in the plane, but even business class can’t retain you from having to adapt to a different time zone. Avoiding a jetlag is near impossible, but there are ways to speed up the process.

• Drink a lot of water when you’re up in the air. Preferably no alcohol. Even if you have a bit of anxiety when you fly, try and drink as much water as you can. When you are up in the air, it’s easy to dehydrate which can lead to headaches or drowsiness.

• Try to be active every now and then during your flight; staying in the same position for an entire flight is far from great for you body. And I’m speaking out of experience here cause when I flew to Bali once, I took a sleeping pill before take off and slept through the entire flight. A 16 hour flight seated in the same position with my head leaning against the chair in front of me. Can you picture it? When I woke up my calves were huge and it took months before they got back to normal. Not fun at all.

• I’m not too fond of them but Liesbeth is pro using a sleeping pill. Take a light one if you decide to use one. They can be rather useful if you’re on a flight where you probably want to sleep to avoid as much jetlag as you can.

• Another option is to do what Liesbeth and I did on our second night here in the Big Apple. Go out, have a couple of drinks, and roll into bed tipsy at 2:30AM. Guaranteed you will be able to sleep in the following morning. But keep in mind, your hangover might be three times as bad as back home.

• Oh yeah, eat healthy and mild in the plane. Since your body’s flow is being disrupted, your metabolism will slow down. This makes you feel more fatigued.

• And lastly; revel in the flow of your end destination. Don’t go napping, just pull through. Probably the most logical step, but also the most effective.