Travel & Hotspots

BYE BYE JET LAG

Good morning – I mean, I believe it’s the morning, let’s just say it’s morning somewhere on our globe. I recently returned from Los Angeles and my entire system is a little confused. A nine hour time difference from my home, yikes. But it could be worse; I was once in New Zealand and there was an eleven hour time difference with my home front, that’s when I was even more confused. Since we were about half a day ahead of the rest of the world I felt like I knew everything at least half a day in advance of the rest of the world – time travel, it does weird things to the brain.

I fly on over to the States a lot for work (and for pleasure), so the past few years I’ve created my own method to deal with the tiredness of the mind and the laziness of the body. Warning: my method is not inline with that of the experts. But I’m stubborn in nature and have been ever since I was born. My philosophy: every hour of sleep counts.

*The experts say: try to get into the rhythm of your destination a couple of days in advance. You prep your biological clock by working with either bright lights or by dimming your home, by taking melatonin and working out (working out, ugh). According to a Dutch newspaper, this is what I was supposed to do before I headed to the States: ‘If you fast forward the morning and evening by two hours for three days straight, workout and use melatonin, you can overcome the six hour time difference that you’ll experience in advance.’ Okay, so what they’re saying is that a couple of days before I went to LA I should have lived in a two-hour advance (added two every day), worked out and taken melatonin? Who does that?! Especially when you’ve got a day job? Usually I’m up all night packing my bags and that alone causes plenty of stress. What I’m saying is: sleep as much as you can, then you’ll be well rested when you head to the airport.

*The experts say: don’t drink any alcohol during your flight. What I’m saying is: start drinking RIGHT away in the plane. Because all I want to do is sleep, so even when I’m flying at ten int he morning, somewhere on the planet it’s five o’clock, so hand on over that mini bottle of red. That way I’ll fall asleep during the first movie I turn on.

*The experts say: expose yourself to as much day light as you can when you arrive. What I’m saying is: Okay… I guess I can understand this point. As soon as I arrived in LA I hit the pool for therapeutic reasons. I had to.

So that was on my trip there. For the way back there’s one important rule when you get back home: stay awake and go to bed at a normal time so you can get back into your usual rhythm as quickly as possible. I’ve been trying it for years: not going to bed after flying back from either New York or LA and missing an entire nights sleep resulting in battling jet lag for another week or so. Until a few years ago when I decided: screw this, I’m tired, I’m heading to bed, I’ll set my alarm for four in the afternoon and I’ll get out of bed. And guess what: a day later and I’ve beaten the jet lag. A couple of good hours of sleep, get up out of bed, cook, watch TV and then head back to bed. Listen to what your body’s telling you and power to the people.

By the way, I was in LA for Bridget Jones’s Baby, and seriously, this movie was… Sorry, I’m not allowed to tell you. Had to sign three contracts in advance so I wouldn’t spill any beans about the movie, Renée, Colin or McDreamy. Here’s the trailer:

Geschreven door Ilonka Leenheer