A caveat here, is this is MY personal way of dealing with it, and not necessarily what will work for everyone.


West is best, and East is worst for jet lag, due to the circadian rhythm issues; e.g. you can ‘recover’ more easily going West than East.  More about that in a bit…


Anything up to three hours either way, I pretty much ignore and just stay on ‘home’ time.  When I go to the Left Coast, for example, I just go eat early, and go to bed early, and get up about 0300-0400.  This way, I’m not dealing with sleep problems, and I can still get a productive day in.  I do usually get something like breakfast bars, or energy bars to eat at that time of the morning, so that I’m ‘simulating’ what I do at home.  


For the longer trips, say 8-12 hours in either direction, I have to add a caveat here- That being I don’t sleep on airplanes, so I’m up for the duration.  I don’t do sleep aids, either melatonin (gives me BAD nightmares), or prescription stuff. The reason being, if something DOES happen in flight, I want to be coherent and able to deal with it (but that’s just me). Also, I don’t drink on airplanes for the same reason. I drink lots of water to stay hydrated because most airlines run cabin altitudes at 7000′ above sea level, and humidity at about 3% (to keep the PACS from freezing up).  I also get up and walk about every hour to keep the circulation going. 


Another thing to be aware of is you WILL build up gas, and you WILL need to relieve the pressure on your Eustachian tubes HERE in the ears; otherwise you may pay for both of those things later in the evening… Just sayin…


Going West, takeoff is around 1200 my time; when I land, say in Japan, it’s about 1600JST, so about midnight to my ‘body’ clock.  I’ll eat a very light dinner, hit the bathroom, and stay up until about 2100JST, and go to bed then (and no alcohol). At this point, I’m over tired, but I ‘know’ I’ll only get a 4-6 hour nap in, and be wide awake again (not trying to do TMI, but your ‘movements’ will normally wake you up about then, since they ‘think’ you should have taken care of them).  I’ll eat a breakfast bar, start drinking coffee and work until others are up, then go to breakfast.  Then it’s a full day, again staying up until 21-2200, and usually sleeping though until about 0500 the next day. At that point, I’m pretty much on cycle for that time zone.


When I go East, takeoff is usually around 2000-2200 my time; when I land in the middle East, it’s 15 hours later (I do the same things on the airplane going East too), and usually around 1930 Local.  So my ‘body clock’ says it’s not time to sleep, so I’ll eat a good meal and either a beer or wine with dinner (if available), and it’s usually a fight to get to sleep. It’s VERY hard to wake up at 0500, because the body clock thinks I should be sleeping another 5-6 hours (hence the easier to go West, than East).  I usually get up an hour earlier than normal going East, to have time to ‘take care of business’, and have time to get enough coffee in me to be coherent, and functional (I cannot do the 30 minute prior wake up and out the door anymore). I’ll eat a breakfast bar, and that is usually it, as I’m not hungry. Then it’s a full day, but will eat lunch (simulating breakfast), and then a light dinner.  Going East, it usually takes about 3 days to drop into the time zone going East.  


If I’m splitting differences, e.g. Hawaii or Europe, I just modify either the West or East plan slightly to match up to that time zone.


As I said, this is what works for me.  As a former aviator, I just don’t like drugs for ANY reason; AND I stay away from spicy foods the day before departure and initially on arrival (you can guess why).  I know others that will use drugs to mitigate the effects, and there are any number of jet lag ‘cures’ out there… Personally, I don’t believe any of them actually work.


You can go HERE and read more than you want to know about jet lag from the medical perspective…


So I hope this answers the email, if not, please let me know.