Planning a long-haul flight? Here's how to outsmart jet lag

Bloody Mary's before boarding time, sleep on the plane, take melatonin when it's bed time. Simple. I never have jet lag anymore.

We always seem to be finding ourselves starting our over seas vacations flying east to west, generally on an over night flight. Sleeping on the plane is always a challenge and "morning" comes way too soon!. Using a neck pillow and melatonin helps. We've been upgrading our seats to have more leg room which automatically means more room for your tray table. I'm excited to try the suggestion to use your back pack as a large pillow on your tray table. The time change flying long distances from west to east always seems more difficult to adjust to. I take a caffiene (NoDoz) pill about 30-45 minutes before landing. I find the little bit of caffiene in my system helps me navigate thru customs & integration with enough energy to drive home ( 2hrs.) from the airport.

I’ve gotten into the routine of wearing two watches; one is always set to Zulu time, and the other is reset to local time after arriving in a new time zone.

When I travel from the west US to Europe, I start getting up a bit earlier every day for a few days before. Day of travel I'm up at about 4am Pacific time. As soon as I get on the plane, I set my watch, phone, camera, everything, to Europe time. Sleep on the plane for a while, stay up until about 9pm local when I get there, then sleep for 9 hours. I'm totally good the next day!

heading west to east? don't take an overnight flight. grab a morning flight and that solves many issues with jet lag. just a shorter day between takeoff and bedtime at your destination.