Groggy, tired and nauseous are a few words that would describe how I’ve felt after long flights in the past. While I love travel, I don’t love airports or more specifically, flying. Airplanes and I just don’t seem to mix and I generally arrive tired and nauseous from the motion and lack of sleep! Anyone else the same?
Our recent trip to Europe was one of the biggest stretches of flying we’ve done! To get to Paris it took us 30+ hours of travel including two back-to-back long-haul flights. Because of this I really did my research to make sure we’d have no jet lag when we landed. We only had a couple of days in Paris and I wanted to arrive at 7:30am ready to explore.
Fortunately (and to my surprise), we landed in Paris feeling almost completely normal! The research paid off and we managed to make the most of our first (and very long) day abroad. Maybe you’re about to go on your first big trip or just want to hit the ground running. Either way I wanted to share my best tips on how to dodge the jet lag and arrive energized after a long haul flight.
No Jet Lag: How to Arrive Energized after a Long-Haul Flight
1: Check what time you will arrive at your destination.
This is the first step to avoiding jet lag. When you take into consideration the arrival time at your destination, you can start preparing. For us, as our flight landed in the early morning, I knew we’d have a whole day ahead of us to stay awake for. So we got as much sleep as we could on our 12 hour flight from Bangkok to Paris – even though it was midday back home.
This will help your body adjust to the local time before you even arrive. Getting around 6-7 hours sleep on the plane was enough to keep us going throughout the first day of our trip. It still felt like a long day, but it was manageable!
If you are arriving at your destination in the evening or at night, try to stay awake on your flight so you’ll be tired enough to sleep when you get there. The key is to be able to slot into local time straight away.
2: Drink lots of water while flying.
You may already be aware of how dehydrating flying can be. To be honest, I used to avoid drinking too much water while flying, as I have a baby bladder and didn’t want to keep disturbing people to get up to go to the toilet! But for our recent trip, I tried to get over that fear and did my best to drink as much water as possible. And I really think it helped me feel better when we arrived!
If you’re worried about disturbing people to go to the toilet (especially when everyone is trying to sleep), consider booking an aisle seat. I didn’t actually need to get up as much as I thought, probably because your body needs the water in the dry plane environment.
3: Get up and stretch during the flight.
This is another tip that I never used to pay attention to. There’s definitely something to be said for getting out of your seat and spending some time standing.
Large planes used for long-haul flights generally have space up the back or around the toilets where you can stand. Don’t be afraid to stand up every 2-3 hours and even spend some time standing. I read a book while standing up the back and I think this also helped relieve some of the boredom. Having a little change of scenery made the flight a bit more pleasant!
4: Use a flying supplement.
This trip I was a little nervous about how I’d feel after doing multiple long flights, so I researched a supplement that’s formulated to combat some of the symptoms. After reading the rave reviews, I took with me 1Above’s anti jet lag tablets, and they were a game changer for us! They’re kind of like a multivitamin specially formulated for flying and travel. The tablets dissolve in water which makes them easy to take with you and drop into your water bottle on the plane.
I haven’t taken a no jet lag supplement before and need to say that this trip was the best I’ve felt getting off a plane! Which is extra surprising considering it’s the longest travel-stretch we’ve done. I also didn’t experience any ongoing jet lag after we landed, apart from a little tiredness late afternoon (to be expected). This is one thing I definitely won’t fly without in the future. You can stock up on 1Above’s supplements before you leave via their website or on Amazon if you’re in the US.
UPDATE: 1Above have been kind enough to provide a discount code for my network, so you can get 10% off and try them out for yourself! Use the code DOSSIER10 for a discount.
Five: Watch what you eat & drink.
I always thought watching what you eat and drink during travel was only for the super-health conscious. But like I said, for this trip I wanted to try everything I could to land energized. So eating and drinking was no exception! During this time I only drank water (with 1Above’s reboot tablets) rather than my usual teas and coffees. It’s true that you also don’t need big meals while traveling – as you’re sitting for so long, you don’t really need extra energy.
Eating mostly fresh foods and not having too many treats during flying helped me not feel heavy or groggy. Once we landed in Paris and dropped our bags off, we bee-lined straight to a cafe for a coffee and it was so enjoyable!
So there you have it! With the above steps, I was able to dodge any form of jet lag and arrive energized after a long-haul flight. I’ll definitely be repeating the above tips for any travel we do from now on. Long flights and the logistics of traveling used to be daunting but having a solid plan in place has definitely eased my mind. I hope they help you prepare too! And if you have other tips that’ve helped you have no jet lag, let me know in the comments below.
Don’t forget to check out some more of our travel adventures and tips.
