Jet Lag Management - The Bear Hibernation Technique

There are two primary options for flying between the United States and Ghana - through Washington Dulles on United or NYC JFK on Delta. I have no particular favorite. There are pluses and minuses to both routes. I usually make my decision based on price. 

However, recently, within the last year, Delta made a major time schedule change which makes it much more difficult for people west of the Central time zone to connect without a very long layover somewhere along the way. So my last two trips prior to this were on United. But when I made my reservation for the trip I just concluded, the price differential was so great (Delta being much lower) that even with a couple of hotels for those long layovers, I was saving big bucks. 

One side effect, of the new Delta schedule is it now leaves Ghana in the morning local time and arrives in NYC mid-afternoon local time. This is just like most of the return flights from Europe to the U.S. If you are stopping in NYC that's fine. However, if you are going on, it is on it creates a jet lag management challenge.

When flying these long routes (8 hours and longer), the ideal time as a business class flier is to have them go overnight so you can sleep. That's the way it has been in the past. But if you have an 11 hour flight going through daylight hour, what do you do? Your body won't be ready for sleep. 

I use what I call the 'modified hibernation technique'. I don't want to have my body stimulated and feeling it is awake because then my body clock will be screaming at me to sleep when I arrive in the U.S. with many hours of daylight ahead. So I basically just lie down with eye shades on, listen to music and do nothing. I try to make my brain and body functions as slow as I can. If I was staying on the East Coast, I would only do this for half the flight to get on the local time. In this case, I still had 9 more hours of travel after my arrival until I got to Atlanta, my overnight location. I pushed the hibernation then for as long as I could on Ghana to U.S. flight. 

I was feeling really tired during my layover in NYC but was able to grab a shower which made a world of difference in terms of keeping me awake. I was able to get a pretty good night's sleep in Atlanta as I did not have to get up early for my last flight to Albuquerque. 

I'm feeling reasonable this morning. I did wake up a little earlier than I would have liked but that is normal for this kind of time zone change.