Walk Off Jet Lag

One hour, one day: That’s the ratio many experts use to explain how quickly your body recovers from jet lag. If you cross two time zones, allow yourself two days to adjust to your new schedule. If you’re headed from the West Coast to Europe, you could be dealing with the lingering effects of jet lag for a week or more.

Of course, no one wants to feel sleepy and disoriented for their whole vacation — so we asked our readers to share their best strategies for adjusting quickly to a new time zone. In Fighting Jet Lag: Tips from Our Readers, Host Bonjour offers one suggestion:

“When I got to Australia after nearly 24 hours in the air plus almost a day at LAX, it was 8 a.m. on a Monday morning, and I was all set to go to sleep. My innkeeper, a lovely woman, told me I wasn’t going to take a nap. I was going to have a shower and get changed, and she’d map out a fine walk for me that she knew would keep me out long enough — to try to get me on local time. Oh, how I wanted that nap, though it couldn’t match the feeling I had when the vista came up before my eyes — the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House, sites I’d only ever seen in pictures.”

Other long-haul travelers swear by sleeping pills or homeopathic remedies containing melatonin (the naturally occurring chemical that helps your body regulate its sleep cycles). Get more information in our story on Jet Lag.

What’s your top tip for fighting jet lag?