Ben’s Final Journey Playbook + Science-Primarily based Tricks to Beat Jet Lag

June 11, 2024

I am about to fly to London for the Well being Optimisation Summit, so long-haul flight administration has been on my thoughts recently.

Seems, it typically doesn’t matter how fancy your compression socks are or what number of body weight squats and calf raises you do behind the airplane, as a result of…

…if you find yourself on that aircraft, you’re inside a tiny metallic tube that’s being bombarded by photo voltaic radiation and that’s fully disconnected from the earth’s pure magnetic area. That is powerful to struggle in opposition to and nonetheless really feel good after (although I am about to let you know how one can hack it).

You might be additionally uncovered to Wi-Fi alerts (typically accessible throughout the entire flight), individuals firing up their telephones and checking e-mail (which occurs for your entire gate-to-takeoff and landing-to-gate phases — typically when there’s only a bar of reception, which makes the radio frequencies being emitted even increased!), dehydration from altitude, dry filtered air, toxin-laden airplane meals, unhealthy water, airborne pathogens, and — in case you are touring throughout a number of time zones — jet lag.

Jet lag is a chronobiological subject that happens while you journey throughout a number of time zones. The day-and-night cycle of your vacation spot isn’t what you’re accustomed to, so your physique clock isn’t in sync with the vacation spot’s time. The issue is exacerbated as a result of consuming, sleeping, hormone regulation, and body-temperature-variation patterns additionally don’t correspond to what you’re used to. Jet lag sucks, as all frequent flyers know. The signs embrace longer sleep onset latency (particularly in case you are flying east), early wake occasions (particularly in case you are flying west), interrupted sleep, poor cognitive efficiency, fatigue, complications, irritability, and issues with digestion, equivalent to indigestion, constipation, and even decreased curiosity in and pleasure of meals.

So, there is a so-called “darkish facet to hypermobility,” and thus not a lot beats flying for radiation publicity, full-body irritation, free radical manufacturing, decreased restoration, and inhibition of necessary organic processes like protein synthesis.

I don’t find out about you, however when I’m touring and should carry out at peak capability, typically simply hours after my flight touches down, I merely can’t afford the full-body injury and lack of health that may happen each time I hop on a flight to a race or convention. 

Luckily, there are highly effective, confirmed methods to beat jet lag and preserve peak psychological and bodily efficiency regardless of what number of time zones you cross. By understanding how one can realign your physique’s pure clocks and mitigate the stresses of air journey, you’ll be able to step off any flight feeling energized and able to function at your highest degree. On this article, you may acquire insights into the highest science-backed ways for conquering jet lag and arriving at your vacation spot primed for achievement.

Mastering Jet Lag 101: Easy methods to Cross Time Zones Like a Professional

The basics of managing jet lag are fairly much like these for sustaining good sleep general. One efficient technique is to implement zeitgebers (a time period which means “time giver”). These are environmental cues, equivalent to gentle and temperature, that assist regulate your circadian rhythms — the inner 24-hour cycle that dictates your sleep-wake sample. By adjusting these cues, you’ll be able to successfully enhance or lower your sleep drive, which is especially helpful when crossing time zones or resetting your inner clock.

A very powerful zeitgebers are:

• Loads of pure gentle and blue gentle through the day and mitigation of shiny gentle at night time
• Consuming meals timed to the conventional consuming time within the location you’re in, which suggests opting out of intermittent fasting or breakfast skipping in the event you’re in a brand new time zone and as a substitute consuming a nutritious breakfast that ideally contains 20 to 30 g of protein
• Chilly publicity within the early hours of the day, then sleeping in a cool atmosphere at night time 
• Motion, ideally by way of an train session carried out inside the first two to 4 hours after waking

Second, you should implement the next 4 gold-standard sleep hygiene parts:

1. Gentle

To handle gentle, get uncovered to pure daylight and use a light-producing system just like the EVY or Beacon40 flashing gentle and the AYO or Re-Timer glasses by day, then dim the screens, don blue-light-blocking glasses, and implement red-light bulbs and/or red-light headlamps at night time.

2. Temperature

Hold the room as cool as potential (60 to 64 levels Fahrenheit is the candy spot), and keep away from arduous train classes and heavy or spicy meals within the three hours main as much as bedtime.

3. Sound

To handle sound, use earplugs and background-noise-producing apps equivalent to SleepStream or sleep with a set of sentimental wraparound headphones like SleepPhones that play NuCalm or mind.fm tracks or a yoga nidra session (my favorites are the tracks from Ally Boothroyd, free on YouTube). 

4. Stress Administration

The fourth element of sleep hygiene — stress administration — is usually the trickiest to sort out. I was the man who would wander in my resort room and open my laptop computer on the mattress or preserve a enterprise e-book useful by the bedside.

Unhealthy transfer.

That routine mentally related my bed room with stress, stimulation, and work.

This may be all of the extra problematic for hard-charging, high-achieving people who find themselves typically genetically hardwired (as I realized once I interviewed Doug Brackman, creator of Pushed) with patterns that will have allowed them to be an excellent, awake, and alert sentry or soldier 4 thousand years in the past however it doesn’t serve you nicely within the fashionable period the place an incoming message to your laptop computer propped up in your stomach in mattress actually isn’t as large of a sleep-disrupting menace as your mind perceives it to be. 

The 2 genes that the majority have an effect on this stress response are the COMT and ADRA2B genes. For instance, your COMT gene determines how briskly your physique can clear necessary neurotransmitters like dopamine and noradrenaline. If in case you have a sluggish COMT gene, you usually tend to keep careworn for an extended time, and stress can in fact intervene along with your sleep.

When you’re a type of of us who’s genetically hardwired to lie awake at 3:00 a.m. plotting out twenty-seven loopy enterprise concepts and reprocessing your current argument with a coworker, my finest recommendation is to get rid of as many types of work as potential from the bed room (together with enterprise books), banish the laptop computer and TV, and use software program just like the 1TapZap, the purple gentle iPhone trick, or the “best well being hack ever” smartphone shortcut to render your system ineffective, boring, and dim at night time.

9 Methods to Stop Jet Lag From Ruining Your Journey

So apart from managing gentle, temperature, sound, and stress, what else are you able to do about jet lag?

Drawing on knowledgeable insights and private expertise, I’ve compiled an inventory of 9 distinctive and efficient methods that will help you modify swiftly and comfortably to your new atmosphere. From grounding methods to high-dose vitamin regimens, the strategies talked about under transcend the standard recommendation, providing modern methods to beat jet lag and preserve you feeling your finest.

1. Follow Grounding

Grounding, which you’ll be taught extra about on this podcast, is the observe of exposing your physique to the pure magnetic frequencies produced by the Earth. Grounding turns into only after flying since hurtling forty thousand ft above the planet in a metallic tube is about as disconnected from the Earth as you will get.

How do you floor your self when touring?

As quickly as I land at my vacation spot, I make it a degree to get exterior barefoot, go swimming in a pool or pure physique of water, or don grounding sneakers or sandals for a stroll.

I additionally use pulsed electromagnetic area (PEMF) remedy gadgets, which use low-frequency electromagnetic waves (set at about 7 to 10 Hz) to stimulate and promote therapeutic within the physique’s cells and tissues. For extra moveable, user-friendly PEMF gadgets, I like to recommend trying out CELLER8, IcesM1, and Flexpulse. I additionally journey with a light-weight grounding mat from Final Longevity that I can simply place below the sheets on any resort mattress. 

2. Get Some Gentle Train In

Analysis suggests that train can regulate circadian rhythms. As awful and depressing as you might really feel coaching after a day or two of worldwide journey, the earlier you’ll be able to vigorously transfer after arriving at your vacation spot, the earlier you’ll bounce again from jet lag and normalize your circadian rhythm.

You don’t should do a killer exercise or an epic run. If I’m feeling a bit blah after touring, my prime three train selections are strolling (barefoot or in grounding sneakers or sandals if potential) within the sunshine or on a seashore, swimming (ideally in cool or chilly water), and out of doors barefoot yoga.

For lengthy layovers, I’ll typically log as much as ten thousand steps strolling by way of the airport whereas listening to an audiobook or podcast, with random bouts of air squats or push-ups thrown in if I discover a quiet spot the place my grunting gained’t annoy the seated Cinnabon eaters.

3. Keep away from Stimulants Till You Arrive at Your Vacation spot 

To cut back jet lag, it’s a comparatively frequent advice to restrict the consumption of caffeine, alcohol, and nicotine.

As a result of these chemical substances overstimulate the central nervous system (CNS) and have the potential to disrupt an already disrupted circadian rhythm, I completely agree and don’t go close to caffeine or another CNS stimulant whereas en path to my vacation spot.

However when you arrive at your ultimate vacation spot, these similar compounds can work splendidly to maintain you awake till it’s formally bedtime in your new time zone or to jump-start your cortisol drive as you get accustomed to the morning hours of your new vacation spot. 

It’s also possible to defeat jet lag by taking any of the nootropics or sensible medication listed within the two articles under:

4. Take Melatonin

Once I’ve traveled throughout greater than three time zones, earlier than going to mattress my first night time at my ultimate vacation spot, I eat a 500 to 1,000 mg sledgehammer dose of melatonin by way of the Sandman suppositories from Mitozen. 

This seemingly insane quantity of melatonin was prescribed by an oncologist good friend of mine to assist his sufferers take care of ache at night time, and upon studying this from him, I gave it a number of tries as a jet lag hack. Moreover, Dr. John Lieurance, who I take into account the highest authority on melatonin, recommends this protocol, which you’ll be taught extra about right here.

It really works, however you might end up extraordinarily groggy the following morning, wherein case ample morning gentle publicity can kick it out of your system quicker. Melatonin can be a pure anti-inflammatory, so it is going to assist cut back the irritation that happens throughout air journey.

5. Drink A lot of Water

You change into dehydrated when sitting within the dry cabin air of an airplane, so an important a part of overcoming jet lag is consuming sufficient water. I’ve experimented with a really excessive water consumption and have discovered that it helps fairly a bit in comparison with the disappointingly tiny water cup handed to me by the flight attendant each couple of hours.

I drink near 16 to twenty ounces of water, practically a full bottle, every hour and really feel a definite distinction in sleep, temper, and power upon touchdown.

Simply make it possible for, in case you are in a center or window seat, your aisle-based seatmate is spry and keen to maneuver each time you want to pee, or you’ll be able to politely ask to change seats.

Discover water boring?

Journey with a small bottle of natural stevia and add it to membership soda or glowing water to create a cream soda-esque expertise. As a phrase of warning, consuming this a lot water per hour could trigger hyponatremia (water intoxication), so I like to recommend that you just eat hint liquid minerals or electrolytes with every bottle. To improve your water with a potent dose of jet-lag-fighting antioxidants, add a scoop of vitamin C powder and some hydrogen tablets. 

6. Take a Chilly Bathe

Along with reducing physique temperature previous to sleep, chilly showers cut back inflammatory cytokine ranges, activate brown adipose tissue to burn fats, and induce a hormone response, significantly by inflicting a spike in adrenaline.

I’ve gone as far as to enter an airline lounge within the airport for a ten-to-fifteen-minute chilly bathe throughout an extended layover. I additionally take a two-to-five-minute chilly bathe within the resort once I arrive at my ultimate vacation spot. Discovering a close-by spa means that you can take issues to the following degree, as you are able to do hot-cold distinction remedy with a number of rounds of dry sauna publicity adopted by a chilly plunge or chilly bathe.

Simply be sure to’re not getting so chilly that you just’re shivering as a result of that degree of chilling will lead to an adrenaline surge that may truly preserve you awake.

In different phrases, get chilly however not too chilly. 

Splashing a number of chilly water in your face may assist, however it’s not practically as efficient as immersion or showering. Chilly showers additionally dilate your blood vessels as a result of they launch extra nitric oxide, and the following enhance in glucose and oxygen uptake by your organs and muscle mass can dramatically cut back jet lag.

7. Devour Curcumin

Curcumin, which is present in turmeric and curries in addition to in concentrated complement kinds, is a potent antioxidant when taken on an empty abdomen each earlier than and after flying. It simply crosses the blood-brain barrier, shuts down inflammatory cytokines in neural tissue, and will even enhance testosterone and development hormone manufacturing.

Upon touchdown at my ultimate vacation spot, I take about 1,000 mg of curcumin from a extremely absorbable supply equivalent to Meriva, which is discovered in lots of dietary supplements, just like the Thorne multivitamin, or from the turmerosaccharides in a serving of Kion Flex. 

8. Search Out Sulfur

Sulfur-rich meals are wonderful antioxidant precursors and assist cut back the irritation that may happen when flying.

Sulfur is present in broccoli, cauliflower, garlic, onions, and Brussels sprouts. In fact, in the event you go for sautéed garlic and onions preflight, you might must brush your enamel afterward (until you propose on creating enemies through the flight).

Fermented meals like kimchi or sauerkraut are additionally good sulfur sources, and as a bonus, can assist to revive the microbiome imbalances attributable to air journey, although a good probiotic may work nicely for serving to the intestine to get better.

Dietary supplements containing sulfurous compounds, equivalent to glutathione, N-acetylcysteine, MSM, and DMSO, might be much more efficient than sulfurous meals. However in the event you squeeze a number of meals with these meals into the times main as much as your flight and simply after, you’ll really feel a lot better while you journey and might be much less prone to undergo immune system deficits.

For an much more potent dose of antioxidants, you’ll be able to take a cocktail of (or get an IV with) glutathione, astaxanthin, selenium, vitamin E, CoQ10, N-acetylcysteine, vitamin C, and alpha-lipoic acid. Animal research have proven that a big dose of antioxidants like this may cut back the oxidative stress attributable to the radiation skilled throughout airline journey, as can taking a big dose of DHA, shilajit, methylene blue, chlorella, or spirulina earlier than flying.

For quicker mobile restore and restoration, I additionally advocate a dose of NR, NMN, or NAD, which additionally works very nicely for sleep deprivation, significantly when mixed with creatine. 

9. Get a Hit of Oxytocin 

Oxytocin is a potent hormone that lifts your temper and acts as an antioxidant, antidepressant, and anti inflammatory.

It’s naturally launched after intercourse and through childbirth and breastfeeding, however you’ll be able to complement with an oxytocin nasal spray dose of about 10 to 21 IU per day, so you will get an oxytocin repair at any time and anywhere, together with while you’re touring.

Along with utilizing a nasal spray, you’ll be able to hug somebody or, whereas it’s barely much less efficient, warmly shake somebody’s hand. Bodily contact will trigger your mind to launch low ranges of oxytocin.

So while you get to your vacation spot, discover the primary one that is okay with it and provides her or him an enormous, loving bear hug. Or do some companion carries up the steps on the resort (which, by the way, makes an ideal journey exercise).

Simply brush your enamel first in the event you used the garlic-and-onions trick…

Extra Tips and Tricks to Really feel Superb After Your Flight 

Whether or not you are embarking on a summer time trip, touring for work, or visiting household, the very last thing you need is for jet lag to break your expertise. Along with the earlier 9 ways, there are many different tips you should utilize to really feel superb while you hop off your flight. Implementing the extra suggestions under will allow you to arrive at your vacation spot feeling refreshed and able to benefit from your journey:

• Don’t eat till it’s mealtime in your ultimate vacation spot, and particularly don’t rise up within the wee morning hours to eat, as consuming meals exterior of regular consuming occasions will make adjusting your circadian rhythm far harder. If you end up mendacity awake with the munchies at 2:00 a.m. in Tokyo, attempt a yoga nidra session as a substitute. That’s my finest trick. 
• Put on full-body graduated compression socks on the flight to regulate blood pooling and swelling within the legs and ft. 
• Use magnesium. It’s not solely going that will help you sleep at night time however can offset a number of the electrochemical imbalances that happen throughout airplane journey. 
• Journey with Omica Organics vanilla — or butterscotch toffee-flavored liquid stevia that you may add to membership soda or seltzer water for extra taste (belief me, it tastes like a scrumptious vanilla cream soda) and to assist preserve starvation at bay.
• Smear the insides of your nostrils with sesame oil or olive oil to maintain your nasal passages moisturized within the dry cabin air. It’s also possible to use a nasal spray for mould and mycotoxin publicity, just like the peptide VIP or the Glutastat intranasal spray, together with a throat spray like Beekeeper’s Naturals propolis spray or liquid silver spray added to an inexpensive journey spray bottle from Amazon. Thieves important oil added to water can be good for the immune system throughout journey.
• Use the light-producing Re-Timer or AYO glasses in your first morning at your ultimate vacation spot, particularly if you already know you can be indoors for a lot of the day otherwise you gained’t be capable of get any sunshine.

Have any questions, ideas, feedback, or suggestions for me on how one can conquer jet lag? Drop me a line under, and I am going to be sure you reply you!

For extra insights into biohacking your journey, I like to recommend trying out the next assets:

• Easy methods to Biohack Worldwide Journey, Ben’s Cheap Hair Loss Prevention Protocol, High Ancestral Residing Methods For A Longer Lifespan, & Extra With Jag Chima.
• Defending In opposition to The Damaging Results Of Journey, Ozone Therapies For Longevity, Stacking Stem Cells With NAD & Exosomes, & Extra With Darshan Shah, MD.
• Fast Jet Lag Suggestions (Video)
• 4 Of My High Fast Suggestions To Hold Journey From Destroying Your Physique.
• How To Get Fats When You Fly
• Methods To Get Smarter, Jet Lag Hacks, Chilly Water VS Cryo, and Neuro-athletics
• 11 Methods To Biohack A Lodge Room, Keep Wholesome When You Journey & Hold Globetrotting From Slowly Killing You.