Here are my personal experiences of how I deal with jet lag when coming back to China from Europe. No matter if you go to another continent for business traveling, or just to visit your family members and other relatives, you may find it my story useful.
My experience dealing with jet lag
My flight to China from Warsaw in Poland had taken off on Sunday afternoon at 2.55 PM. It was a 9-hour flight. I arrived Beijing at 6.30 AM the next day on Monday.
After doing a simple math, it is easy to figure out that the time difference between Warsaw, the capital of Poland, and Beijing, the capital of China is 7 hours in winters (and 6 hours in summers). While people in China wake up in the morning, those living in Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia or Hungary are getting ready to go to bed.
Eastward traveling from Europe to China meant that my body had to handle a time difference of 7 hours. And that, I will most likely suffer from a jet lag in the next couple of days. In my case, the most severe symptom of jet lag was having troubles falling asleep.
Why actually is jet lag?
Jet lag, also called desynchronosis, happens traveling on high-speed aircraft across time zones. We experience daylight and darkness contrary to our usual rhythm for eating, sleeping, hormone regulation and body temperature variations.
Simply speaking, if our internal body clock is disrupted, it is jet lagged.
Tips to avoid jet lag
To avoid most of the common symptoms of jet lag, e.g. fatigue, insomnia, anxiety, constipation, diarrhea, confusion, dehydration, headache, irritability, nausea, difficulty concentrating, sweating, coordination problems, dizziness, and even memory loss, I usually try a few different ways to cope with flight fatigue.
- Adjust all clocks. A few minutes before boarding the plane on my way back to China from Poland, have already adjusted all my clocks according to the Chinese time zone. Because I wanted to trick my mind a little bit, so it can start getting used to the new reality by simulating that me and my brain are in China already.
- Try to fall asleep. Then, when we were already on the plane for a few hours, I tried to fall asleep at the same time people in China go to bed. Because it was still late afternoon in Poland, it was quite hard to fall asleep though.
- Drink plenty of water. I tried to drink as much warm pure water as possible during the beginning of our flight to stay hydrated. But, I did not drink anything later during the flight. Neither I moved a lot around the airplane in order to give my mind a sign that it is nighttime already, so I could adapt to the new schedule. Many passengers who were sitting around drank coffee, tea, soft drinks or alcoholic beverages. I do not recommend drinking any of these because they all tend to dehydrate and negatively influence sleeping routine.
- Eat regular meals. During my entire journey, I tried to eat meals regularly every couple of hours. I brought my own nutritious food (brown rice, chicken and kale with carrots) instead of eating airplane food. Airplane food is not freshly cooked nor very healthy.
- Do not nap. Despite being super sleepy for the whole day after arriving to my destination, I forced myself not to take any naps during daytime. I waited until evening and went to bed around 10 PM. Falling asleep was less troublesome. You can also try to move your bedtime earlier for several nights before you leave your original place, if traveling east. If you are traveling west, go to bed a few minutes later each night for several nights. You can do the same with mealtimes to minimize the unpleasant symptoms of being jet lagged.
Many times in the past when traveling westward (from China to Europe), I used to have much easier time adjusting when I was ’gaining’ seven hours rather than when traveling eastward (from Europe to China) as I was ’losing’ those hours. I could not sleep, have meals, follow bathroom habits and other daily activities according to my natural rhythm.
However, thanks to mindfully following the above mentioned tips how to deal with jet lag, I was able to wake up around 6 AM in the morning and not suffering from any jet lag symptoms.
Remember that the speed at which the body adjusts to the new schedule depends on the individual. A westward adjustment takes around half the number of time zones crossed (in days), and an eastward traveling takes around two-thirds the number of time zones crossed.
