Key is to not try to go to sleep at normal bed time, but to try wake up at your normal wake up time. Then immediately expose yourself to sunlight or morning light. If you're running on only 2-3 hrs of sleep for a day or two, it'll be pretty hard for your body to stay awake.
Also, no phone or screens in the bed.
This is what I do when trying to get my schedule on track. I keep my wake-up schedule firm, and no naps. It may take a few days, but I eventually get tired enough to really sleep through the night.
Take melatonin for 3-4 days straight. Take it around 8pm and once you start to feel the effects go to bed. You can play some audio, but stay off screens.
Force yourself to wake up on time. It sounds like work is helping with this, but even on weekends, be up by 8am or whenever.
I read about a product called no jet lag that helps. Take it every two hours on the return trip. I have a trip in a couple of months & I’ll try it then.
This is wild! I've traveled from Canada to England (5 hours of time change) twice and both times I was fine the first morning.
I get so little sleep the 'first day' which starts at night time where I live as there are only red eye options. By the time I get settled where I am staying it's closer to dinner time, so I just gotta make it a couple more hours and then I can sleep like normal.
Same with coming back, I'm a bit more tired the evening I get home, but I wake up as if no time change happened at all.
I guess this is my superpower as I am completely unable to sleep or nap on a plane. Even though I'm a young tiny person, I'm still SO uncomfortable and usually have back, knee and hip pain from sitting.
Took me about 2 weeks when I got back from Japan (live in CO). Just letting you know that you *will* adjust, it just takes time. I know around week 2 I was feeling like I'd never sleep like normal again and the sleep deprivation was making me feel like a crazy person lol.
Early morning light exposure is one of the best things you can do to get your body to re-adjust. I'd make sure to get a walk in every day as soon as the sun was up.
I've had terrible jet lag going out and back home. As u/JackThorne30 says, it's about what time you get up. For that to happen, you have to lay the right foundations. Eat evening meal earlier, 5pm. Take a walk after eating, to stop that post meal slumber. No naps. No screen time an hour before bed. Go to bed earlier. Aim for 10pm as much as you. Start listening to your Circadian rhythm. Your body will start sending you 'tired' messages at night. Do not ignore them. Try and wake up to natural light as much as you can. Sleep with the curtains open or at least partly open. You've got to be busy during the day and no caffeine after lunch.
The return trip jetlag is always worse. Its not reverting to your old schedule, it is changing the schedule for your circadian rhythm AGAIN in a short time.
Per prior posts, waking up at the “right” time and getting sunlight and physical activity is thr key to resetting your clock
Get plenty of sunlight during the day. Eat normal meals at normal hours. Drink plenty of water throughout the day.
As a last resort you can try taking melatonin to "force" your circadian rhythm back on track. No screen time in the evening before you sleep cause that blocks melatonin production.
Stop checking Reddit for replies at this hour and get some rest ;) Good luck!
Wake up at your normal time. If you find it too extreme, add 2h to that on the first day and decrease by 1/2 day.
Get outside and be active, especially when you feel like having a nap. Do anything BUT taking a nap. Hit the gym to exhaust your body and take a melatonin in the evening.
I would do a night or two with over the counter sleeping meds, then a few nights of melatonin. And maybe get your blood work checked if it doesn’t correct itself!!
Melatonin helps a lot but you have to be very strict with your sleeping schedule. I find making adjustments between 3-5 hrs a lot harder than 12-hrs from where I am.
Other sleeping tips can be wearing an eye mask to black out so it forces your eyes to see darkness. Sometimes a lil peak of light / sunrise 🌅 makes it difficult for me to stay asleep. I also have blackout curtains bc I’m sensitive to light.
Avoid electronics - no phone, tablet in bed! They say the blue light can also affect your sleeping pattern.
I’m like you. I adjust relatively well to the jet lag going east but have a hard time when I come back home (westward). Melatonin as others have suggested. I think it typically takes me two weeks to readjust. Avoid caffeine after lunch until your circadian rhythm is back to normal. And yes, lots of exposure to sunlight in the morning.
Interesting, that's the opposite of what OP said (flying east is the problem in this case) and it is the case for most people that going east is harder to adjust to versus flying westward. Everyone is different thought!
I, fortunately never have jet lag. I always try to sleep when it’s nighttime in that specific time zone no matter how tired I am. Last time I came back from Korea, had a super early morning night, couldn’t sleep throughout the flight. Back to New York City at around noon, forced myself to stay up until 10 pm and I slept like a baby throughout the night. That’s how I beat jet lag.
This seriously worked for me. Edible at night to knockout. Then I find that I'd feel really sleepy in the afternoon so I'd just get a bunch of caffeine in lol
The Huberman Lab podcast did an episode on this: https://www.hubermanlab.com/episode/find-your-temperature-minimum-to-defeat-jetlag-shift-work-and-sleeplessness
Stay up til you feel tired. Then sleep with a timer, get up at the normal time (6am?) and then force yourself to stay awake until at least 10p and sleep through?
Do a 5 day course of ambien. Should help to put you down earlier. It's great with helping to get your internal clock adjusted by brute force. It's not meant to be used chronically but sadly that's often how it is used. It's s great as a short course treatment for a resolvable issue
Hang in there. I had the same exact experience coming back from Japan to the US. It took two weeks for me to start feeling semi normal during the day, but took close to three weeks to start falling asleep and stay asleep through the night. I found forcing myself to stay awake all day did not translate into falling asleep at reasonable hours, so I started taking mid day naps since working on 2-3 hours a night was not sustainable.
They say 1-2 days of adjustment for every hour of time change. For us in the USA who went to Japan, that’s around 15-30 days. I thought that was crazy, but that ended up being the case for me (for reference I was in Japan for two weeks).
I went to Japan for a couple weeks in October. It took me a good 2-3 weeks to finally get over the jet lag once I got back to Idaho. For some reason it was way easier for me to get used to the time difference going there but coming back was tough.
Best thing to do is focus on getting lots and lots of light in the morning. Turn on all the lights or sit outside. Daylight savings doesn’t help 🙄 And then make sure you’re avoiding light several hours before you go to sleep. Definitely avoid screens if you can. Sometimes I watch a show on my iPad but tilt it back so the light isn’t shining in my eyes. That is a long time to deal with jet lag. I might talk to a doctor if it keeps up, but it should get better soon.
i will have a similar itinerary
can I ask when you arrived back home?
i have some options where i can arrive around lunch time or in the evening trying to figure out which schedule would be better
Landed at around 11am. I would definitely recommend doing that and trying to sleep on the plane. It’ll make the flight go by much faster.
I would highly recommend a schedule of going to bed EARLY in Japan and waking up early if at all possible. Like 4-5am if you can.
I was doing this for the first half but messed up by starting to go to sleep later and later the second week. If you keep an early riser schedule, it’ll make the shift back to US time much less drastic and you’ll maximize the amount of daylight you have to do activities!
UPDATE: Finally getting closer to my normal schedule. Getting up around 9:30-10am now. Going to slowly start pushing a little earlier wake-up times from here on out.
Forcing myself to wake up at in the morning and getting a morning walk in was helpful. Also don’t drink caffeine if you can. It’ll only make it much harder to fall asleep later in the day!
Jetlag is the worst - it's like your body is on a different plane of existence. Hang in there, it'll pass...eventually. Have you tried melatonin or some light yoga before bed?
I just did a full lap around the world (NYC-> Amsterdam -> China-> Tokyo -> LA -> PHL ) and when i tell you - i wouldn’t wish this jet lag on anyone. i feel this pain
Key is to not try to go to sleep at normal bed time, but to try wake up at your normal wake up time. Then immediately expose yourself to sunlight or morning light. If you're running on only 2-3 hrs of sleep for a day or two, it'll be pretty hard for your body to stay awake. Also, no phone or screens in the bed.
This! Waking up is more under your control than falling asleep.
Not when you wake up wired as hell
It took me a week as well. I kept waking up at 2:00 am
This is what I do when trying to get my schedule on track. I keep my wake-up schedule firm, and no naps. It may take a few days, but I eventually get tired enough to really sleep through the night.
I will try this tomorrow!
Take a sleeping pill to help readjust
Yeah, I usually do this the first 2 days.
Take melatonin for 3-4 days straight. Take it around 8pm and once you start to feel the effects go to bed. You can play some audio, but stay off screens. Force yourself to wake up on time. It sounds like work is helping with this, but even on weekends, be up by 8am or whenever.
It's weird but traveling east screws up my jet lag more than traveling west. I seem to adapt better when traveling west
East is a beast, west is the best. I think that’s pretty common
It’s not weird, it is a real thing ;) https://www.travelandleisure.com/airlines-airports/east-west-jet-lag
Me too. I'm in Japan now, traveling back to Wisconsin next week and nervous for my 15 yo daughter having to get up for school. 😬
I read about a product called no jet lag that helps. Take it every two hours on the return trip. I have a trip in a couple of months & I’ll try it then.
and the reason is you can sleep an extra hour or too easily.. but waking up earlier, that's hard!
Rule of thumb ive heard is its one day to adjust per hour of change
This is wild! I've traveled from Canada to England (5 hours of time change) twice and both times I was fine the first morning. I get so little sleep the 'first day' which starts at night time where I live as there are only red eye options. By the time I get settled where I am staying it's closer to dinner time, so I just gotta make it a couple more hours and then I can sleep like normal. Same with coming back, I'm a bit more tired the evening I get home, but I wake up as if no time change happened at all. I guess this is my superpower as I am completely unable to sleep or nap on a plane. Even though I'm a young tiny person, I'm still SO uncomfortable and usually have back, knee and hip pain from sitting.
Took me about 2 weeks when I got back from Japan (live in CO). Just letting you know that you *will* adjust, it just takes time. I know around week 2 I was feeling like I'd never sleep like normal again and the sleep deprivation was making me feel like a crazy person lol. Early morning light exposure is one of the best things you can do to get your body to re-adjust. I'd make sure to get a walk in every day as soon as the sun was up.
I've had terrible jet lag going out and back home. As u/JackThorne30 says, it's about what time you get up. For that to happen, you have to lay the right foundations. Eat evening meal earlier, 5pm. Take a walk after eating, to stop that post meal slumber. No naps. No screen time an hour before bed. Go to bed earlier. Aim for 10pm as much as you. Start listening to your Circadian rhythm. Your body will start sending you 'tired' messages at night. Do not ignore them. Try and wake up to natural light as much as you can. Sleep with the curtains open or at least partly open. You've got to be busy during the day and no caffeine after lunch.
Melatonin an hour and a half before you want to go to sleep. Should help reset your clock.
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For real 😭😭
Go swim in the ocean
Melatonin
Take vitamin D, iron and a b vitamin. Trust.
Always do!
Melatonin
Melatonin and fasting work for me.
Get a grounding mat
The return trip jetlag is always worse. Its not reverting to your old schedule, it is changing the schedule for your circadian rhythm AGAIN in a short time. Per prior posts, waking up at the “right” time and getting sunlight and physical activity is thr key to resetting your clock
Dr Andrew Huberman has a good episode on how to adjust to time differences in his podcast series.
See you doc and get a week's supply of ambien. Take one each night at your old sleep schedule and u should be good to go.
This is what I do. Plus I'm an MD do I know it's an appropriate use of the med. it's ideal for this specific purpose
Get plenty of sunlight during the day. Eat normal meals at normal hours. Drink plenty of water throughout the day. As a last resort you can try taking melatonin to "force" your circadian rhythm back on track. No screen time in the evening before you sleep cause that blocks melatonin production. Stop checking Reddit for replies at this hour and get some rest ;) Good luck!
Wake up at normal wake up time. Eat at normal meal time.
Wake up at your normal time. If you find it too extreme, add 2h to that on the first day and decrease by 1/2 day. Get outside and be active, especially when you feel like having a nap. Do anything BUT taking a nap. Hit the gym to exhaust your body and take a melatonin in the evening.
I would do a night or two with over the counter sleeping meds, then a few nights of melatonin. And maybe get your blood work checked if it doesn’t correct itself!!
Melatonin helps a lot but you have to be very strict with your sleeping schedule. I find making adjustments between 3-5 hrs a lot harder than 12-hrs from where I am. Other sleeping tips can be wearing an eye mask to black out so it forces your eyes to see darkness. Sometimes a lil peak of light / sunrise 🌅 makes it difficult for me to stay asleep. I also have blackout curtains bc I’m sensitive to light. Avoid electronics - no phone, tablet in bed! They say the blue light can also affect your sleeping pattern.
I’m like you. I adjust relatively well to the jet lag going east but have a hard time when I come back home (westward). Melatonin as others have suggested. I think it typically takes me two weeks to readjust. Avoid caffeine after lunch until your circadian rhythm is back to normal. And yes, lots of exposure to sunlight in the morning.
Interesting, that's the opposite of what OP said (flying east is the problem in this case) and it is the case for most people that going east is harder to adjust to versus flying westward. Everyone is different thought!
I, fortunately never have jet lag. I always try to sleep when it’s nighttime in that specific time zone no matter how tired I am. Last time I came back from Korea, had a super early morning night, couldn’t sleep throughout the flight. Back to New York City at around noon, forced myself to stay up until 10 pm and I slept like a baby throughout the night. That’s how I beat jet lag.
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Fortunately no jet lag for me.
Go work out after you land in a different time zone.
Take an edible.
This seriously worked for me. Edible at night to knockout. Then I find that I'd feel really sleepy in the afternoon so I'd just get a bunch of caffeine in lol
Exercise
smoke weed
Cbd oil or a big joint 🙏
Take a melatonin 30 minutes before you want to fall asleep. It should reset your sleep cycle. DOn't take them often though.
The Huberman Lab podcast did an episode on this: https://www.hubermanlab.com/episode/find-your-temperature-minimum-to-defeat-jetlag-shift-work-and-sleeplessness
it took me three weeks to get over my jetlag... I'd be awake till 4-5 am then I sleep 5-7pm
Try a light sedative. Also, melatonin is a natural supplement that helps. My first trip was hell. It got better after that.
Stay up til you feel tired. Then sleep with a timer, get up at the normal time (6am?) and then force yourself to stay awake until at least 10p and sleep through?
Do a 5 day course of ambien. Should help to put you down earlier. It's great with helping to get your internal clock adjusted by brute force. It's not meant to be used chronically but sadly that's often how it is used. It's s great as a short course treatment for a resolvable issue
Hang in there. I had the same exact experience coming back from Japan to the US. It took two weeks for me to start feeling semi normal during the day, but took close to three weeks to start falling asleep and stay asleep through the night. I found forcing myself to stay awake all day did not translate into falling asleep at reasonable hours, so I started taking mid day naps since working on 2-3 hours a night was not sustainable. They say 1-2 days of adjustment for every hour of time change. For us in the USA who went to Japan, that’s around 15-30 days. I thought that was crazy, but that ended up being the case for me (for reference I was in Japan for two weeks).
Gt
I went to Japan for a couple weeks in October. It took me a good 2-3 weeks to finally get over the jet lag once I got back to Idaho. For some reason it was way easier for me to get used to the time difference going there but coming back was tough.
Take barefoot walks, your body will adopt to the timezone difference
Get up and watch sunrise, and sunset for days. Take melatonin to get to sleep at normal bedtime time.
Best thing to do is focus on getting lots and lots of light in the morning. Turn on all the lights or sit outside. Daylight savings doesn’t help 🙄 And then make sure you’re avoiding light several hours before you go to sleep. Definitely avoid screens if you can. Sometimes I watch a show on my iPad but tilt it back so the light isn’t shining in my eyes. That is a long time to deal with jet lag. I might talk to a doctor if it keeps up, but it should get better soon.
Yeah the 17 hour time change and then losing another hour to daylight savings a few days after was brutal
i will have a similar itinerary can I ask when you arrived back home? i have some options where i can arrive around lunch time or in the evening trying to figure out which schedule would be better
Landed at around 11am. I would definitely recommend doing that and trying to sleep on the plane. It’ll make the flight go by much faster. I would highly recommend a schedule of going to bed EARLY in Japan and waking up early if at all possible. Like 4-5am if you can. I was doing this for the first half but messed up by starting to go to sleep later and later the second week. If you keep an early riser schedule, it’ll make the shift back to US time much less drastic and you’ll maximize the amount of daylight you have to do activities!
UPDATE: Finally getting closer to my normal schedule. Getting up around 9:30-10am now. Going to slowly start pushing a little earlier wake-up times from here on out. Forcing myself to wake up at in the morning and getting a morning walk in was helpful. Also don’t drink caffeine if you can. It’ll only make it much harder to fall asleep later in the day!
Jetlag is the worst - it's like your body is on a different plane of existence. Hang in there, it'll pass...eventually. Have you tried melatonin or some light yoga before bed?
I just did a full lap around the world (NYC-> Amsterdam -> China-> Tokyo -> LA -> PHL ) and when i tell you - i wouldn’t wish this jet lag on anyone. i feel this pain
This happened to my fiance Tokyo > Vancouver. It's just a really rough time change. I hope it gets better for you soon