Good news - With aging the "everyone is different" camp is increasing.

Bad news - With aging the "slow down, less is more" camp is increasing.

An interesting phenomenon is that some of the same people are in the "stay awake or be sorry" camp as well as the "slow down, less is more" camp, which appear to the untrained eye to be incompatible.

Nikki, stay awake, but take it easy? I don't have a choice, because after every overnight flight I have a long drive home around the M25. Staying awake is essential!

I thought that Red Bull was invented to keep people going.

I never sleep on the plane, I am afraid I will miss my stop.

The day we land, we just go until we drop.

My body must be very smart. I can't trick it with changing my watch to the new time. I just pay attention and do what feels right, resting when my body calls for it. Pushing thru (been there tried that) only makes me miserable.

Arriving early in the morning sometimes means the choice as to whether to nap or not is moot - many hotels don't have a room ready until afternoon.

I remember a trip to Madrid about eight years ago - I flew solo from San Francisco to Amsterdam to Madrid, arriving at 7 a.m. Little decent sleep on the planes, and when I arrived at my hotel near Plaza Mayor, I was welcomed to leave my bags, but there was no available room for me until mid-afternoon.

I decided to walk around the city - was doing pretty well until about one o'clock when I was exhausted and stopped to rest at a park near the Palace. Sat down on a bench under some trees, where there were quite a few office workers apparently enjoying their lunch breaks.

Much to my horror, try as I might, I could NOT keep myself from drifting into sleep. That awful stupor where you jerk yourself back to consciousness just as you are about to fall over. I was afraid that I would slip off my perch and be arrested for public drunkenness!

I forced myself up and walked (stumbled) about a mile back to my hotel, where I was able to get into my room and pass out for a few hours.

Oh, the joys of travel!

I think this is one thing you just have to discover for yourself which works best. I am in the camp of do not nap the first day upon arrival or it will ruin your trip for days (and no, I cannot hardly sleep on the plane, either). If I nap, I cannot sleep well that night and then I'm messed up for days. I feel worse if I nap for 1-2 hours, actually. I used to do that as I was so tired, but then tried to force myself to stay awake one time (which I can do, especially if you are walking around and outside) once, and I adapted within one day to the time change, so that's all I do now. Previously, I took maybe 4-5 days to adapt if I napped upon arrival.

I never nap at home, either, I might add, as it also makes me feel terrible and then I can't sleep at night (unless I'm sick).

I don't do anything super important the first day, though, but walk around, maybe a little shopping, get tickets or info, etc. Might do a museum if small and free or something like that, or something outdoors like a monument or park.

But the OP has already experienced this and said it works for her to take a nap (that it all sorts itself out within one day), so if so, I'd go with that. I usually arrive at the hotel around 10-11 am, I guess, if in Western Europe t (later if going to central Europe) and can usually check in to my hotel about 75 percent of the time, it seems to me.

Everybody's different.

I know it is recommended to push through, but we always are exhausted by about 3 pm, so we check into our hotel, unpack, and then nap for about an hour. Then we shower and change clothes, take a little walk, and then head out to a relatively early (for Europe) dinner. This works fairly well for us.

I have never tried Ambien...my major flying issue is back pain, so I take a Vicodin (and maybe another half-tab six hours into the flight. It does not make me drowsy as it does for some folks -- I wish it did, because I basically get only a few hours of off/on sleep...unless I am lucky enough to snag a middle-four or three on the A300's that fly from PHL. (That doesn't happen very often, sadly.)

ssander

Our routine:
No napping after arrival
Push forward
Early dinner and early to bed
Sleep in first morning if needed
Use No Jet Lag..can find online

Maybe yet another reason to travel solo - sleep when I want, as long as I want. Turn on the lights when I wake from my nap at 2am, make myself a cup of soup with my heating coil and go back to sleep. Not that I needed another reason.

I prefer to analyze it by taking the trip out of the equation.

Your sleep patterns and tendencies at home won't change much on the road. I personally cannot take a nap during the day and even remotely hope to go to be at the normal time. For me, a one or two hour nap doubles when it comes time to try to go to sleep. That means I've delayed the waking time for the next day, or I'm fighting sleep that day.

If napping at home doesn't affect your ability to sleep at regular bedtime while at home, then by all means take the nap. If you have difficulty sleeping the night after a nap during the day, then by all means, don't nap.

But how can you take "the trip out of the equation"?

At home I sure wouldn't just happen to find myself staying awake for 24+ hours straight & in a time zone 9 hours different than I am used to.

I agree that everyone is a snowflake on this issue, it depends upon each person how they will react.

In order to better analyze how this effects each individual, it seems to me that how each individual reacts to sleep pattern disruptions will give us a better prediction of what will happen to that person instead of how everyone BUT the individual reacts.

I think that each person has a similar sleep "habit" whether they are in Poughkeepsie or Prague, so that "habit" is a better predictor of what you will see when you try changing it.

I fall asleep as soon as the wheels lose contact with the ground.

Next month I'm going to China and I still don't know what to do : since I stay about 3 days there, I guess I'll try to stick as much as I can to my internal clock.

The problem comes with the kids : they sleep when they are tired and wake up when they feel like it. And it rarely corresponds to my own timing. And I don't remember a time I travelled without a small kid. Shouldn't have done so many I guess - my fault. My wife's ? Our fault !

The sequence "unload, have festive drinks & perhaps a nosh, then forty winks" sounded exciting. Alas, "nosh" doesn't mean what I was hoping.

Isn't a napery a tissue or napkin or something like that?

I don't really suffer from jet lag, so maybe I'm not the best person to give advice. I traveled often from the east coast of the US to China, which is 11 (or 13) hours different, depending on which direction you go. I always counted it as 13 hours, because then I didn't have to think about the International Date Line. Once I got to China, I always had an official committee welcoming me at the airport, and they always set a busy schedule for me the first day. It was never a problem.

I've often thought that one way to help with jet lag would be to try to get on the new time a week or so before leaving. When going east, this would mean going to bed an hour or two earlier and getting up an hour or two earlier. Then, when you arrive, try to go to bed an hour or two later than you usually do, and wake up an hour or two later. (After all, you're on holiday!)

<i> Before you fly out, set your watch to the current time in your destination, then do whatever it is you would normally be doing at that time. So, if you are leaving the west coast on an 8 AM flight and the time in your destination is 5 PM, get on the plane, eat, have a cocktail and take sleeping pill to fall asleep by what would be 9 PM in your destination </i>

This wouldn't work at all for flights from the east coast of the US. which usually leave later, when it's already bedtime or later in Europe. Then by the time the food service is over and everything settles down, you have about four hours to sleep before they wake you up again.

I agree, bvlenci, but practically speaking, that would never have worked for me. It was always far easier just to deal with one single day of "soldiering on" than an entire week of changing my schedule.

I can't sleep on the plane, it's the only time I get restless legs.

If I'm so tired I'm nauseous, then I nap for about 20 - 30 minutes and am good to go.

Last year we missed our connection and had a four hour wait. Perfect for a bite of lunch and short stretch out in the lounge.

One year we couldn't check in early, so found a nice bench and took turns resting our eyes.

For us, that's usually sufficient, early to bed and on schedule the next day.

Now coming home, that's the real problem, it takes about a week to really feel back on track.