Jet Lag - Travel East or West

[straitman]

Quite!

I still believe sleep (lack of) is the main cause of the tiredness often described as Jetlag and the best solution is sleep. The more I have while travelling I find the less I'll need to recover.

We agree on this, though maybe to different degrees.

Sleep is definitely part of the problem and also part of the resolution.

 

[littl_flier]

I still believe sleep is the main cause of the tiredness often described as Jetlag and the best solution is sleep. The more I have while travelling I find the less I'll need to recover.

Ditto, I find my biggest problem is the lack of sleep not the fact that I'm flying into a different time zone. (for god's sake, I was shattered after spending 7 hours going BNE-CNS-GOV last week but that was a lot more to do with the Saturday night, rather than the time I spent on the plane. It's only a half hour time difference :shock: ). At the end of the day, that's why on long haul it works for me to arrive late so I can crash because otherwise I go to bed and can't sleep that night.

Commuter, I admire that you can manage to stay awake all day after 24+ hours in transit.

 

[dajop]

Just me, but I find the buzz of being somewhere else in the world tends to keep me going regardless of how many timezones of crossed or how much sleep I've had getting there. Coming home can be a different story though, and it affects me more regardless of which direction I've come from.

Having said that, two things:
1) I do find it much easier to arrive mid-late afternoon than early morning.
2) The sleep thing is important, eg. I feel less tired after a LAX-MEL (14hrs+ in the air) than an o/night SIN-MEL (<7hrs) due to the sleep I can get on the plane.

 

[JohnK]

What if you are travelling North-South or South-North? Does jetlag still exist as in theory you are not crossing any time zones?

I find that occassionally after a long flight my sleeping pattern has been disrupted. I was fine during the travel through the US and Europe and a coach trip in Central Europe for 2 weeks. When I returned to Australia it took about 5 days to adjust to regular sleeping pattern again. Jetlag? Possibly.

If on a RTW I prefer to travel West-East as I love having an extra day at the beginning of the holiday.

Whereas, if you travel by ship it is probably a 4-5 day journey (I have no real idea having never done it, thank goodness )....

I don't know the exact number of days but just to give you an indication back in 1972 it took 39 days to get from Piraeus, Greece to Sydney via the Mediterranean, Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean and Great Australian Bight. The Suez canal was still closed. There were a few stops along the way so 32 days is probably closer to the mark.

 

[NM]

SYD-HKG , overnight and then continue to LHR in the morning; when QF/BA used to have a daytime flight SIN-LHR, it was really good since I could get off in SIN and then use the transit hotel before a nice 7am trip to UK

SYD-LAX is tricky, but the other way, I would try and take QF8 at lunchtime

Dave

This is why I now try to do my ATW flights west-bound. Much better schedules for making daytime flights and avoiding overnight flights.

 

[Dave Noble]

This is why I now try to do my ATW flights west-bound. Much better schedules for making daytime flights and avoiding overnight flights.

Indeed. Can do the whole journey on day services

Dave