The ironic thing about my writing this post now is that I’m doing a fairly poor job of coping with my jet lag - being that I haven’t followed my own tips! Sometimes it’s just easier to give in to the call of a night’s sleep. At 4pm.
Some of you might not be so familiar with the pitfalls of jet lag - the medical term is actually ‘time-zone-change-syndrome’ or ‘desynchronosis’. I’ve had friends whom get pretty sick from it, nauseous and the like - for the most part it’s really about needing to sleep and wake at the wrong times, an interrupted body clock.
I HATE JETLAG. I just find it lonely and depressing, especially when I’m returning to the land of darkness aka Sweden in the winter - and it’s a horrible feeling to be unbearably tired in the day time when you’re trying to just, you know, dream - believe - achieve stuff.
ok.
1. Don’t eat loads on the plane
especially if you’re on a long flight and you’re doing nothing. It hurt’s to get bloaty-y when you’re sitting frozen in position like a battery hen - and FACT, gases expand 30 percent more when at altitude… meaning things could get… musical. Feeling light when you disembark is going to help the recovery process.
2. Green tea is your friend.
How I learnt about this: Back when I was modelling I would have moments where I felt a little neurotic about my weight, some trainer had told me that green tea helped you drop a kg fast so I’d get to the end of the day and chug about 12 cups of green tea in one go. I can’t really comment on whether it helped with the weight lose because - there is no real quick fix peeps - but it did keep me awake ALL night. Not in a wired/coffee kind of way though. I actually just thought I didn’t need the sleep. ANYWAY - here’s something I ripped direct from the interwebs. The combined stimulant effects of caffeine, theobromine and theophylline in green tea may be balanced by another substance in the tea, the amino acid L-Theanine which simultaneously calms the nervous system and enhances concentration abilities. So try out the tea!
3. Melatonin.
You can buy this wonder stuffs from your doctor (in Australia) though perhaps across the counter in some countries. It’s supposedly a non-addictive-sleep-helper-friend. #actualtechterms I’ve found it to be pretty beneficial in helping me acclimatise to a new body clock - but use it as directed by your doctor or pharmacist because I don’t want to be sued. Thanks!
4. Exercise. Sigh.
I resent that exercise helps with everything to do with vitality and wonderment but it just does. The most awful part of this tip is that I can’t be bothered exercising when I’m jet lagged because I’m tired and excellent at making excuses not to exercise. I promise I’ll do some squats and push ups after I do this post.
5. Being social.
Stay away from your couch and your bed and try and get out and do things and be social - basically distract yourself from the creeping feeling of tiredness. I used to say add a few glasses of wine into the mix here but that’s not really going to help you in the long run… or maybe for some of you it will! Feel free to experiment. And be safe.
Anyway, that’s the best I have so far and if you have any more tips I’d love to hear them because I HATE JETLAG.
