Avoid Jet Lag By Hacking Your Mealtimes

Photo by Karolina Grabowska from Pexels

One of the best things about working from home is taking that definition of home and expanding it to include any place where you happen to be sleeping that night. Freedom is the name of the game, right? But you can’t play that game — or get anything done for that matter — if you’re suffering from jet lag. Whether it’s brought on by a flight across country, across the ocean or by this weekend’s one hour time reset, when we turn the clocks back and lose an hour — and an hour of sleep — fatigue is tough. As a person who suffers from jet lag (when I went to London for three months, it took me the whole first month for my body to adjust from Los Angeles time to UK time), I knew I had to find a better way. After all, how could I reconcile my love of travel — especially the spontaneous kind that puts you in another time zone for an unexpected few days — with my pesky and extraordinarily stubborn internal clock? No doubt about it, I was going to have to find a way around my circadian rhythm.

Jet lag is a disruption in the body’s internal clock. Most of us, night owls and early birds alike, wake up when it’s light, feel sleepy in the afternoon and have an overwhelming need to hit the pillow when it’s dark, whether that’s 8 pm or 2 am. In addition to the sun, eating seems to have a large place in the how our bodies keep track of time. Why else have most society’s evolved to crave a morning caffeinated beverage, whether that’s coffee, tea, cocoa, yerba mate or something else? In many countries, a nap or siesta after lunch is acceptable and a pick up around 4 to push through until dinner and the end of the day is de rigeur. So it makes sense that tweaking the body’s clock will employ food — or the lack thereof — to reset it.

This was the thinking behind The Argonne Anti-Jet Lag diet, invented by scientist Charles Ehret. The Air Force uses it. So too does the Army, the Navy, the CIA and the Canadian National Swim Team. I tried it a few times. It works. But, it also needs a three to four day lead time that alternates feast and fast days. Great if you’re the type who plans your life months in advance. Bad for those of us who tend to fly by the seat of their pants and have a chaotic social life that might not synch up with that rigid eating plan. Enter the anti-jet lag fast. Think of it as the Cliff Notes version of the anti-jet lag diet. Simply put, on the day of your flight, you start fasting 12-16 hours before breakfast time at your destination. Skip caffeine, drink lots of water on the plane and, reset your body on arrival with a good meal. (There’s an online calculator that makes figuring out when to stop eating and then when to start again…but it doesn’t seem to be working.)

The last time I used it was pre-Covid, flying back from Paris. I ate dinner on the early side and skipped breakfast — and coffee — the next morning before getting on a plane at 10:15 for the 12 hour flight back to Los Angles. I drank only water on the plane. Arriving at 1:05 in the afternoon, I dropped my bags at home and took a shower before meeting friends for dinner. I went to bed on the early side and woke up the next morning around 8, after a longer than usual night’s sleep, had a coffee (and the pain au chocolat I’d grabbed from the boulangerie in Paris) and set about my day. I didn’t experience any jet lag that day, the following day or the day after that. Instead, I slipped seamlessly into my routine.

Now, as the world opens up, I’ll be using it to ensure I’m on track for my upcoming trips. After all, plane food, besides being a way to pass the time, isn’t anything to write home about. And I’d rather miss eating on the plane than enjoying exploring my new destination.