Beating Jet Lag: Reminders to Shift Sleep, Light and Meals

You land after a long flight, and for the next few days your body clock is somewhere over the ocean. You're wide awake at 3 AM, desperate for sleep at 4 PM, and hungry at strange hours. For a holiday it's annoying. For a work trip, a family wedding or a short visit, it can eat into the very days you travelled for.

Jet lag happens because your internal clock takes time to catch up with a new time zone. You can't skip it entirely, but many travellers find it easier when they start adjusting a few days before they leave and follow a simple plan once they arrive. The hard part isn't knowing what to do. It's remembering to do it at the right times, especially when those times feel wrong.

A quick note: if you have a health condition, are pregnant, or take medication on a strict schedule, talk to your doctor or pharmacist before changing your sleep or medication timing for travel.

The basic idea: shift gradually and live on local time

Most practical jet lag advice comes down to a few common-sense principles:

• Shift your sleep a little before you go. Moving bedtime and wake-up time by around an hour a day for a few days, in the direction of your destination, gives your body a head start.
• Use daylight. Light is one of the strongest signals for your body clock. Getting outside at the right time of day at your destination helps you adjust.
• Eat on local time. Having meals at normal local times gives your body another cue.
• Stay hydrated and go easy on alcohol and caffeine, especially late in the day.
• Keep naps short on arrival day, so you can still sleep at night.

Which direction you shift depends on where you're going. Flying east usually means going to bed and getting up earlier. Flying west usually means later.

A sample three-day plan (flying east)

Say you normally sleep 11 PM to 7 AM and you're flying several hours east. A simple pre-trip plan might be:

• Three days before: bed at 10 PM, up at 6 AM.
• Two days before: bed at 9 PM, up at 5 AM.
• The day before: bed at 8 PM, up at 4 AM, if that's realistic for you.

It won't always be possible with work and family life, and that's fine. Even a partial shift can help. For westward trips, shift later instead.

On the plane

• Set your watch or phone to destination time as soon as you board, and think in that time.
• If it's night at your destination, try to sleep. If it's daytime there, try to stay awake.
• Drink water regularly.

Arrival days: the plan that's hardest to follow

This is where reminders really help, because your body is telling you to do the opposite of the plan:

• Morning: get outside in daylight for a walk.
• Early afternoon: if you must nap, keep it short and set something that will actually wake you.
• Mealtimes: eat at local times, even if you're not very hungry.
• Evening: start winding down at a normal local bedtime.

A 20-minute nap that turns into four hours is one of the most common ways to lose the next night's sleep. An alarm you can snooze in your sleep is not much protection.

Sample reminder wording

• "Jet lag plan: bed at 10pm tonight, up at 6am tomorrow."
• "Shift day two: lights out at 9pm."
• "Set your watch to Tokyo time now."
• "Wake up from your nap. Go outside for some daylight."
• "Lunch time locally. Eat something even if you're not hungry."
• "Wind down now. Screens off, bed by 10:30pm local time."

Medication and time zones

If you take regular medication, crossing time zones can be confusing. Should you keep home time, switch to local time, or shift gradually? The right answer depends on the medication, so ask your doctor or pharmacist before you travel and write their advice into your plan. Once you know, reminders can hold you to it on arrival, when you're too tired to work it out.

Coming home

Jet lag often feels worse on the way back, when there's no holiday excitement to carry you through. Use the same plan in reverse, and give yourself a gentle first day back if you can.

A quick jet lag checklist

• Work out your destination's time difference and direction.
• Plan a gradual sleep shift for a few days before departure.
• Switch to destination time when you board.
• Plan daylight, meals and bedtime for the first two or three days.
• Check medication timing with your doctor or pharmacist.
• Keep naps short on arrival day.

How ReminderIt helps

When you're jet-lagged, a quiet phone notification is easy to sleep through or ignore. ReminderIt reminds you with a real phone call at the time you choose, plus a WhatsApp message with Done and Snooze buttons. If you miss the call, WhatsApp still has it, and ReminderIt tries the call once more about five minutes later. That makes it well suited to the "wake up from your nap" moment.

You set it up by chatting on WhatsApp in plain words:

• "Remind me Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday at 9pm to go to bed early for my trip."
• "Call me at 2:30pm Tokyo time to wake up from my nap."

ReminderIt works in most countries, so the call can reach you at your destination. Just be clear about which time zone you mean when you set a reminder abroad.

Try it with a 7-day free trial, no card. Got a long trip coming up? Message us on WhatsApp at https://wa.me/14786061901 and set up your jet lag plan before you pack.