What’s worse than being crammed in a too tight, too upright seat on an overnight flight? Being wide-awake the entire time. Short of receiving a golden ticket (i.e., an upgrade to a lay-flat pod), there are some strategies for making a long flight more restful so you won’t arrive feeling totally wrecked.
Show up somewhat sleep deprived.
Most red-eyes involve traveling west to east over multiple time zones and trying to fall asleep earlier than you normally would at home. “Being a bit sleep deprived when you get on the plane can be beneficial,” said Jamie Zeitzer, co-director of the Center for Sleep and Circadian Sciences at Stanford University. Try to stay up a little later than usual the night before the flight and get up extra early the morning of. If you’re tired when you board, he said, “it might outweigh the fact that you’re uncomfortable and trying to fall asleep at a weird time.”
Skip the onboard meals.
“We sleep better if we don’t eat right before we go to sleep,” said Dr. Virginia Skiba, associate medical director of the Henry Ford Medical Group Sleep Laboratories in Michigan. “Eating a light, non-greasy meal a couple hours before the flight is your best choice.”
Kristin Luna, a Tennessee-based travel writer who has been to more than 130 countries, said she always eats a meal at home or at the airport before departure, and she packs snacks (like nuts or Kind bars) to eat before landing. “Given the option between an extra hour of sleep or waking up for the cabin breakfast service, I choose sleep every time,” she said.
Trick yourself into sleep mode.
When you board, make the mental switch to your destination’s time zone. If you’re leaving New York and heading to Paris, it’s not 6 p.m. when you take off, it’s midnight.
Next, start your bedtime routine. “Translate as many of your calming nighttime rituals from home to the plane as you can,” said Dr. Oren Cohen, an assistant professor of sleep medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. “Your brain likes those associations to help lull you into sleep.” That can include switching off all your screens, brushing your teeth and taking out your contact lenses.
Ms. Luna uses a blackout eye mask, noise-canceling headphones and a Trtl neck pillow, which she loves because it folds flat in her carry-on bag. “I also wear cozy, pajama-like clothes and a long cardigan that can double as a blanket,” she said.
Think twice about taking sleep medications or drinking alcohol.
The experts in this story all cautioned against using over-the-counter or prescription sleep aids (like Tylenol PM, melatonin or Ambien) during a flight. But if you are considering doing so, talk to your doctor beforehand, said Alicia Roth, a sleep psychologist at the Cleveland Clinic. “Never take any medication or supplement for the first time on a flight,” she added. “Try it at home the week before so you know exactly how you respond to it, how quickly it affects you and how it makes you feel when you wake up.”
Also consider the duration of your flight. “Most stay in your system for at least eight hours, so if you don’t have that much time to sleep, you shouldn’t be taking it,” Dr. Cohen said. “Even if it helped you sleep a little, it might leave you feeling overly groggy when you land.”
While the general wisdom about drinking on planes is to not do it, Dr. Zeitzer is a bit more sanguine, so long as you’re not combining alcohol with sleep medication. “It’s not a good idea to have several cocktails, but a single glass of wine might relax you sufficiently so you can fall asleep,” he said. “Alcohol isn’t great for sleep, but in this scenario, imperfect sleep is still better than no sleep at all.”
Get creative with your seat and sleeping position.
A window seat is often the best option since you can lean against the wall. Some travelers have less obvious preferences. After years of commuting between Colorado and Australia, “I learned to book the aisle seat in the plane’s middle section,” said Drew Hudon, a marketing director for a medical device company. “I found that the other seats in that section are usually taken by people traveling together,” he said, “so if one of them needs to get up, they’ll wake their companion to get out, not me.” Middle seats in the middle section are also often some of the last to fill, so you can sometimes score an extra seat to spread out.
Any seat can be made more conducive to sleep with a little ingenuity. “If I’m with someone I know, this is my favorite airplane sleep position,” Dr. Cohen said. “I recline my seat just an inch more than theirs and rest my head on their seat.” Or sometimes he employs the head stack: “I rest my head on my partner’s shoulder and they rest their head on top of mine.”
Stay up once you arrive.
No matter how well or how much you sleep on the plane, once you land it’s all about beating jet lag. Plan activities on that first day that keep you outside and moving. “Light exposure early in the day helps regulate melatonin and adjust your internal clock to the new time zone,” Dr. Roth said.
Being on the move accomplishes another important goal: It’ll wear you out. “Bedtime at your new location isn’t going to feel like bedtime,” Dr. Zeitzer said. “Being really tired helps override the strong signal from your body that it wants to stay awake.” And after a good night’s sleep, you’ll finally feel like you’re on vacation.
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