A couple of months back, Bryan Caplan had written:
1. Jet lag. What’s the best way to cope with jet lag? Most people sleep on the plane, then gradually adjust to the local time once they reach their destination. The problem: It often takes a week for people to get a decent night’s sleep. By the time they’re feeling themselves again, they’re almost ready to go home.
My alternative: Do not sleep on the plane. At all. When you arrive, do not sleep – at all – until a locally normal bedtime. Pay the fixed cost without cheating. When you wake up eight to ten hours later, you will be refreshed and in sync with your new time zone. In exchange for less than a day of sleep deprivation, you will feel fine for the rest of your trip.
So I decided to practically test out his advice. When I was flying in to New York over the weekend, I took a conscious decision to not sleep on the flight beyond 7 am New York time. It was hard, and I had to watch drivel such as Sankat City in order to keep myself awake, but after a day of work in New York, I think it is working well. It’s hardly 10pm and I’m feeling insanely sleepy now but I suppose this can be classified as “normal” sleeping time itself.
I also saw Kaminey on the flight. Extremely well-made movie, and the lack of length helps. And I finished reading Jonathan Wilson’s Inverting the Pyramid also during the flight.
New York city is insanely cold, and windy! It is ar eally scary experience wehn the wind hits your face, and there is the chance that your nose might just break and fall off ! When i had gone for dinner last night, I ended up running backwards! Only to save my face from being hit by the wind. Thankfully today the weather was better and I managed to roam for a bit after work.
I hope to update this blog more frequently while I’m here in New York. And doo read all of Bryan Caplan’s article.
I’m afraid that this is not the best strategy. The best thing to do is not to sleep JUST before you board the plane, given that you have an early morning (5 am types) departure. The logic is that, it does not matter when you do not sleep as long as you are on the sleep cycle of the country you are visiting. My point is that it is much easier to not sleep while you are in your house / on land than when in the air. I tried very hard last time I was on this 16 hour flight to keep awake, but its bloody hard! It was much simpler keeping myself awake the night before, chatting with people and watching movies I actually liked.