I no longer get jet lag. Here's what I did.
I used to suffer from jet lag. Terribly.
First night after a long-haul flight, I’d stay up till 10pm, then wake up 2 hours later. By 8am I would be exhausted, but couldn’t let myself sleep. I’d eat breakfast, forcing it down, feeling as though I was on the deck of a ship in a storm (you know that feeling, when the ground is moving even though its not?), drink enough caffeine to fuel me through the day, and try to carry on.
You know how toddlers cry over the smallest and silliest things?
That is me when tired.
I would spend my first 3 days or so in a new country crying over the silliest things. No whole milk? Devastated. Weak tea? The worst thing ever. Wait too long for breakfast? Tantrum alert. Bed uncomfy? Bad smell in the room? Someone looked at me funny? Forgot my favourite moisturizer? * Cue mental breakdown *.
Night 2, I’d stay up until 10pm and wake up after 3 hours. A repeat of yesterday: forcing food down, drinking too much caffeine, crying all.the.time.
Night 3, I’d sleep maybe 4 hours.
Night 4, finally, FINALLY, I’d sleep 5 hours. This felt like winning the lottery.
Night 5 would finally be an actual full night’s sleep.
That’s just the sleep schedule. The deck-of-ship feeling lasted 7 days.
The tiredness, grogginess, foggy-headedness? 7-10 days.
This happened 2-3 times a year, whenever I flew from California to Europe and back.
When I say ‘I no longer get jet lag’, that I am not just talking about being less tired. I mean the whole thing:
I no longer experience any symptoms at all.
On my last trip to Europe, which I returned home from 10 days ago, I did not have an ideal travel day: my flights were delayed, I had a 6 hour wait at Heathrow. I got into Glasgow late, was picked up and taken straight to my grandma’s house for dinner, and didn’t get into the hotel until 9pm. I slept through the night, waking up at 6 the next morning. UNHEARD OF! Day 2: 1030pm-630am. Day 3: 11pm-7am. On day 2 I had about 3 seconds of the ‘deck of ship’ feeling, and that was it. No tiredness. No crying. No foggy-headedness. It was like I was at home, and everything was normal. It’s a truly dramatic difference.
What changed?
Well, last year, upon return from a trip to Greece, where my jet lag somehow got even worse, I decided to do something about it.
So I polled my friends on Facebook.
(Before you roll your eyes and say that crowdsourcing information is not as good as google, my friends on Facebook are a mix-and-match bunch of somatic therapists, herbalists, naturopaths, life/spiritual coaches, expats, and seasoned global travelers. They are better than the google.)
There were many pieces of advice given out in the thread. I took 4 of them and implemented.
-Deciding not to have jet lag (Naomi Hyman)
-Light and food (Bevin Clare)
-Sleeping pills (My mum)
-Connecting with the land (Aisha Tambo)
Two of these are tangible, physical things. Two are internal things. As you’ll see in my explanation, I think that the internal ones made the biggest difference. In future, I will be using all 4 of these things every time I travel.
The first, and most annoying of these things is simply deciding not to have jet lag.
Deciding not to have jet lag.
When I read this, I rolled my eyes. I rolled them doubly hard because it was my little sister and nobody wants to take advice from their little sister. There have been many instances in my life when I have suffered from something, and had someone mention simply deciding not to, and it brings up no small amount of rage in me: you don’t understand where I’m coming from. You don’t understand how I suffer. OBVIOUSLY you don’t get it, because if it was as simple as changing my mind don’t you think I would have by now? So, at first I ignored it: I was looking for TANGIBLE things that worked. Not to simply change my mind. Sheesh.
Except.
I am curious about things. My reaction to being told to make a decision was more extreme than the situation called for. There was something there for me to look at. So I looked.
It occurred to me that I had been thinking of jet lag as a constitutional issue. That there are people who get jet lag and those who do not. I was a person who got it, and without even meaning to, I identified as someone who got terrible jet lag.
It’s not that I wanted it. Obviously, I didn’t want it. But, I still took on the mantle. I talked about it to people who would listen. I’d tell the stories, because I found them funny (who cries over tea?! Who lies awake next to their snoring husband for 8 freaking hours without committing murder?!?!). At this point, it was a habit. It had happened for so long that I expected it every time. I thought it was my lot to bear, and that there was nothing I could do about it. This is key: when something is constitutional, we think that the best we can do is manage it. When something is not constitutional, then it can be changed. If jet lag is constitutional then we’re stuck with it. If it isn’t, then… perhaps changing it is possible.
But first, I had to look at some mind-trash:
-The thought of simply turning it off felt like it did not give credence or justice to the amount that I had suffered.
-If I were simply able to switch it off, then perhaps I could have done that in the past: maybe I suffered, and subjected whoever else was traveling with me to my suffering, for no reason.
-To simply switch it off meant somehow just dropping the old pattern that I was attached to. Not because I wanted it, but because I had suffered with it so much. When we suffer, the idea that we can just let it go does not feel good: it has to mean something or it’s all for nothing. Holding on to it gives the suffering itself meaning. Essentially, I was resistant to letting it go because letting go felt like giving up a badge that I had suffered for. Even if it was something I really didn’t want.
I explored this resistance as I would any other resistance: with curiosity and kindness. Where do you come from? Why is this identity so important? Is holding onto it worth the suffering?
The last question really got to me. My answer, from deep in my body, was very clear:
No. Holding onto it is not worth the suffering.
So, I decided to become a person who does not have jet lag.
I didn’t bring it up again. I didn’t talk about changing my mind. I just decided, then and there, that I was going to create a new pattern, and this pattern was one of a person who was able to immediately adapt to where I was in the moment.
Every time I started to fear the days of jet lag that were coming in my trip, I remembered this, and said something to the effect of: that was in the past. Now I am a person who easily and effortlessly adapts to the time zone of a new place. Other people do it, there is no difference between them and me. Things like that. I said it when I felt dread, or fear, or started future-predicting about my trip. I got excited about the idea of a new future, with a new pattern. I think this helped so much, because it meant I was able to go into this experience without preconceived ideas to be fighting against, while trying to do something new.
I believed it was *possible*.
If in reading ‘deciding not to have jet lag’, a bunch of internal resistance happened for you, I’d recommend, when you have the inclination, pulling the rug off the trap-door of that resistance, and taking a peek underneath to see what’s there.
2. Sleeping pills.
Take a sleeping pill on the plane. Take another one on the first night, right before you go to sleep (lights off, earplugs in, in bed, THEN take it). Take another on the second night. By that point you should be good. Take sleeping pills, or tylenol PM, or benadryl, or something that will put you to sleep at key times, to force your body to sleep on the new schedule. A cup of passionflower tea is not strong enough, unfortunately; you need something that’s going to override your body’s patterns, not work with it.
I took a very low-dose sleeping pill on the plane, and slept for 6 hours. I did the same on my first night in Glasgow: took a sleeping pill, and slept as long as possible. I think it helped me override my previous tendency to wake up at midnight on the first night. I had enough sleeping pills to take for 3 nights, and on the flight home, and on my first night at home, but it turned out I didn’t need them.
3. Light and food.
Get on the light and food schedule of where you’re going ASAP.
I was already aware of the whole ‘get your body on the eating schedule of where you’re going’ thing, and despite doing that, I still had jet lag. However, this time I added ‘getting outside into daylight first thing in the morning’. I went for a brisk walk after my first cup of tea. Got sunlight on my face (I was in Glasgow in February, so this in itself is a miracle). Got some fresh air. A bit of blood flow. I got outside into direct light as much as possible those first few days, even when it was no longer sunny.
4. Connecting to the land.
Ok, this is the biggie.
My friend Aisha* mentioned it in the FB thread. Given what I teach, in The Wonder Sessions (connecting to the earth and earth spirits is 75% of the course), and in my private mentorships (connecting to the earth is such a massive part of the nervous system healing process), you’d think this would be obvious to me. It wasn’t.
I went out for a walk onto the Orry in Eaglesham. Walked on the earth, leaned myself against a giant horse chestnut tree. Touched oaks, and hawthorns. Ideally I’d have laid down on the earth. This is Glasgow; I was wearing my favourite coat and was not lying down on the sodden earth. So I went back to my room, lay on my bed, and connected with the energy of the earth from there. To pre-empt a question, I don’t know. I am so used to connecting with earth energies and letting them in. If you are not experienced with it, it might help to actually get your body onto the ground itself. Experiment with it**.
So I lie in bed, and start to explore where the energy of the earth meets my own. My entire front line is tightly clenched. In exploring the tension, I realise that the body does not have the language and understanding for how it feels to be hurtling through the air, through time zones, at hundreds of miles an hour, in a tiny seat, in a metal box. It’s just incomprehensible to a body that is built to walk and be on the land. I use this word lightly, with a very small ’t’, but it is a trauma of sorts. In allowing that layer of fear and tension to soften, my body started shuddering. Shaking out the fear and resistance to moving that fast.
We resist the energy that runs through everything when we do not feel safe. Letting go of this tension, the body returns to a baseline of safety. Returning to feeling safe in the nervous system allows us to re-open to the world around us, allowing energy to flow again. Letting the earth energy flow through our bodies again.
Tension/ resistance blocks flow. Letting go allows the flow to return.
It was when I felt reconnected to the earth again that I knew in my body that jet lag was not going to be the slightest issue. I was in sync with the earth’s rhythm again; it didn’t matter where I was or how far I had traveled.
Allowing the earth in is simply an act of surrender, receiving, allowing. Releasing the tension that is blocking it. Remembering how it feels to do this in your body. The more you do it, the easier it gets.
I met up with a friend who had flown in from halfway around the world a few days later. She started having the ‘deck of a boat’ feeling, so I guided her through letting the earth energy in and reconnecting, too. She didn’t get the feeling again, and didn’t get any jet lag either after that.
So, here is a summary for you:
1. Decide not to get jet lag. Mindset stuff can be annoying and bring up a world of resistance. If there is resistance, however, then there is likely information there (we don’t resist things when there’s no energy there), so take a look at it, clear it out, and change your mind.
2. Get light on your eyes, and food in your belly, both at the right times for the time zone you’re in.
3. Sleeping pills can help you switch to the correct time zone and sleep through the night on the first few nights.
4. Connect to the earth. Deeply, profoundly, within your body. Get outside for a walk as soon as possible, no matter the weather (see above: I was in Glasgow, where we had rain and snow). Get your feet on the earth, your body on the earth if possible, and soften the tension that holds it at bay. The more you can let the energy of the earth in, the more quickly your body will be ‘home’ where you are.
That’s it. 4 steps.
Please report back after you’ve tried it.
Love, Rebecca
*Aisha Tambo is a [brilliant] somatic therapist based in Toronto, and her work revolves around connecting people to land, and healing ancestral trauma. You can find her HERE.
*If you don’t know how to let the earth energy in, but want to learn, you might like my class The Receiving Project, in which you will learn to receive earth energy through your body. This is something we do in even more depth in The Wonder Sessions (a 2-year intimate group program). You can get on the TWS waitlist HERE .