jet lag

[mo 83]

Hi everyone what is the best way to get over jet lag ?we have been twice before and found we were all awake at 3.30amthe first day ,it took us about 2days to acclimitise .a friend told us the trick is to stay up very late the day you land and then you wake up about 7.30 am then you are over it has anyone tried this ?,if not what are your tips for this problem? We are going 1st may for 3 weeks and can't wait thanks in advance
bradsgran

 

[mickeyetta]

Hi there!

I can't speak form authourity as i've only been once! But on that one Wonderful trip we managed to stay up until 10 PM (Florida Time, so it seemed like 3 or 4 in the morning to us).
We woke up a few times in the night, think that was just to do with being in a strange place (Or was it the excitement?????) but eventually woke up proper at about 7.30/8 am.
So your friends theory seemed to work for us. All I can say is i wasn't expecting to stay up that late but it's amazing how the sunlight helps, my body was saying it was 12 midnight on a November night but the sun was still up! And i think thats what helped the most!!

Hope you have fun in Florida!!
Mickeyetta

 

[Enright78]

To be honest we have never found it a problem to be up and out early the first day, you'll have
loads to do!!
But the advice to keep going as long as possible is good advice.
We take advantage of being up early to go to Animal Kimgdom, where most of the animals are most active early.

I have always found jetlag to be worse coming back, it makes me stay up till all hours in the morning when I have to be in work early the next day! I have used Melatonin with some success to counter this.
Have fun on your trip!!

 

[WDWfan uk]

... I'm a great fan of melatonin! You cannot buy it here, it's prescription only, but you can get it in the US - any supermarket with a pharmacy has it on their shelves. I takeone before going to bed and it works really well.
A good 24 hours before you fly, it's also recommended to cut down on caffeine intake and drink a lot of water. Eating heavy meals and drinking alcohol on the flight are also to be avoided.
I don't find jetlag a problem going out there - but coming home and adjusting is harder for us but taking the melatonin has really eased the problem for me.

 

[jimmie2daughters]

Mo
The basic strategy for avoiding jet lag is to try and adopt the local time as soon as possible.

If you arrive in your hotel in florida at 5 pm local time, your body thinks it is 10pm and says "go to sleep".
You should fight this and try and stay awake for a few more hours. I you go to sleep at 5pm local , you will end up waking up in the middle of the night. Try and stay awake until as near your normal bedtime as practical.

If you think going is bad then just wait until you try coming back. It is well known that west to east (forwards) is much worse than east to west.
You will arrive back after (probably) sleeping on the plane for a few hours and lo and behold , you are expected to start a brand new day.
Again , the best thing to do is try and survive awake until your normal bedtime (if practical).

Melatonin will not help going to America but (in theory) may be of use coming back. ME, I hate drugs (that is what malatonin is) and would rather just try and adapt to local time asap.

PS I have children with for the first time this May. I know what I will try and do, but how do I sort the kids out ?
Tell you in 1 month
ATB
Jimmie L
lancaster

 

[Loftus]

We followed this rule in Feb and although I woke a few times in the night I didn't get up until 5.30 - 6.00 so it wasn't too bad. It didn't seem to bother the kids at all.
Coming back was harder. We slept a bit on the plane, but luckily - because we had been bumped onto the earlier flight we arrived in time for the boys to play football for their teams on the Sunday and this kept them awake all day. They went to bed a little bit earlier than usual and were up and at school on Monday, a little bit more tired than usual but nothing they couldn't handle.
I work nights so my body clock is haywire all the time

 

[UKDEB]

The problem with staying up late is that you will have had an unusually long and tiring day - we're normally up at around 4am to leave for the airport at 5am. Having said that, we usually manage to keep going until about 9.30-10pm local time (2.30-3am to our body clocks), but we still find we're normally up at around 4am. I think we could probably go back to sleep, but we're all so excited we don't really want to. We have a leisurely breakfast, a swim and then head for a park for opening.

The good news is that the jet-lag doesn't last too long on the outward trip - by the third morning we're easily sleeping until 7am. As everyone has already pointed out, it's coming back the other way which causes problems.

 

[Nita]

We all coped going out and enjoyed getting up early to hit the parks
But comeing home was dreadful
it's the Holiday blues that dont help
It took me about a week to get my body clock working on the correct time

 

[TracyK]

I would agree with most of the advice here. We got back yesterday morning and we didn't have a sleep in the day. We went to bed at about 10:30 and had a good night's sleep. I feel great and will go to bed as normal tonight. This has worked for our last three trips.
We have been four times and the first time we returned we made the mistake of having a sleep that afternoon. We then couldn't sleep properly that night and it took us several days to adjust. We also don't got to bed until about 11:00 on our day of arrival and I usually wake about 4:00 on the first morning. I'm lucky that I don't need much sleep but my DS has coped really well with this strategy. Good luck.
Tracy

 

[mo 83]

Hi everyone and thanks for all your replies ,i am going to try stay up late on day of arrival andhope for the best i'll let you know how i got on when we return.

bradsgran