My body is still in Denver

Wide awake at three in the morning. Sound asleep in the meeting I flew all this way for. — Sales rep, 1971

Jet lag wears off at about a day per time zone, and flying east is worse for most people. The doctors' advice now is timed light and moving your sleep a little at a time. Wiley Post had his own method. Before he flew around the world in 1931, he spent months eating and sleeping at different hours every day, so his body wouldn't have any habits left to upset. Got his jet lag at home, ahead of time. Thorough man.

For now: start shifting your bedtime toward the new time zone a few days before you fly.

The full file

Nobody had a word for it until 1966. A travel writer named Horace Sutton used "jet lag" in the Los Angeles Times that February and compared it to a hangover. Jets had been carrying passengers for 14 years by then.

Post wrote it all down. He and his navigator, Harold Gatty, went around the world in 8 days, 15 hours and 51 minutes in the summer of 1931, and a 1969 FAA study called him the first person to describe in detail what crossing time zones fast does to a body.

Here's what the CDC says works. Flying east, get bright light in the morning and stay out of it in the evening. Flying west, do it the other way around. After an overnight flight east, though, early light can push you the wrong way, so go easy on the sunrise. If you try melatonin, a little does it: half a milligram to one is often enough, and more than five isn't recommended. Going east, take it about an hour and a half before the new bedtime. Or do what Post did and ruin your schedule ahead of time.

Relates to No. 00380.