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How would I go about changing my sleep hours? I have a 6-7 hours flight in about a week from now. The state I am visiting is 3 hours ahead of time compared to where I reside now. Literately, I will be traveling from west coast to east coast.
When I fly from the US to the UK, I try to change my body clock to UK time as soon as I wake up on the day of the flight. The time on my phone is changed to UK time, and I eat my meals according to what the time is in the UK, regardless of the 'now' time in the US.
I've never had real bad jet lag, just suffer from lack of sleep on the transatlantic flight, but that's because I find it difficult to sleep on flights. You could try going to bed earlier than usual, the evening before your flight; even if you don't get in some extra sleep hours, at least your body is getting plenty of rest.
3 hours is pretty easy; just go to bed on the early side the first night (and you might wake up early that second day too). After that you should be all set, it's not that big of an adjustment.
Not sure what time your flight is (red eye or earlier in the day) but generally speaking...when I'm flying over many time zones in any direction, I try to stay up as long as possible. It just suits my habits/body better. So if it's a smaller adjustment and I can stay up til midnight at my destination, then I'll be good with a full nights sleep and ready to go the next morning. Or if it's a really big adjustment and the longest I can stay up til is 8 or 9p, that's fine too I'll get a long long sleep and then just be up on the earlier side the next morning. Basically I try to make the big adjustment at once and then can tweak after that. It also helps that I can sleep on planes no problem so depending on the flight time I can kinda prepare for that adjustment after landing.
3 hours is nothing, but just force yourself to adjust from day 1. Stay up 3 hours later, eat your meals 3 hours later, etc.
But really, 3 hour time difference barely registers to me.
3 hours is nothing, but just force yourself to adjust from day 1. Stay up 3 hours later, eat your meals 3 hours later, etc.
But really, 3 hour time difference barely registers to me.
Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
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Westbound is simple
I have commuted to Asia for over 20 yrs. 18 hr flghts and 10-12 hrs difference.
Just get in the local time schedule the moment you arrive, no naps,
When eastbound, I leave Singapore at 8AM and (after 16 hrs of flying and passing immigration, I arrive at 9 AM the same day. So... I go straight to workand stay till midnight. Then sleep 6 hrs and back on schedule.
You certainly cannot afford to burn short USA vacation schedules 'adapting' to each region.
I am doing my current RTW routing westbound. 8 months, So far, so good. No lost days.
How long is your trip? If it's a couple days I generally just stay on my home time zone schedule if it's within 3 hours. For the most part this is doable unless it's a work trip in which case wake up is early no matter how you slice it.
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