Well, I accidentally discovered a solution to jet lag. No guarantees that I’d be able to reproduce it, but it worked! Here’s how:
- Only sleep three hours during the night before the trip. This way, you start out sleep deprived.
- Stay awake all night on the overnight flight over the Atlantic. Weird Al can help with this.
- On the afternoon/evening flight take two Benadryl to deal with the perfume in the cabin and then forget that you took Benadryl and order wine with your dinner. It doesn’t have to be good wine, even the stuff that approximates vinegar will do the job here. Sleep like a rock for five of the eight hours even though it’s the most crowded flight so far, which is good, because you have negative legroom. An extra bonus: when the flight attendant asks if you want ice cream a few hours later, you’ll barely be coherent, but just enough to manage to say “yes”.
- Get picked up from the airport and go straight to bed at the motel and sleep until you wake up.
Hey, it worked and I appear to have zero jet-lag effects! Of course, getting up at 0600 instead of 0430 helps… But don’t argue with success. I’ll gladly accept my blessings when they come along like this.