Time your sleep such that you sleep during HK night time. So about the last 6-8 hours of your flight would be ideal. In HK carry on your day as usual and do not succumb to naps during the daytime. If too tired, end your day at 6pm and you won’t have jet lag.
My routine:
- Stay up later for a couple nights before your flight
- Adjust watch to HKT. Take off at 3pm HKT
- Chill out the first few hours with meal + movie (as late as you reasonably can)
- Bring a Cabeau S3 neck pillow, eye mask, earplugs and bose noise cancelling headphones
- At ~6-7pm HKT, take a zzzquil (or a benadryl + doxylamine succinate)
- Pass out for as long as you can
- Land, get to your accommodation and take a 1.5-3hr long nap
- Then stay up from 2pm - 10pm (you’ll start feeling very tired by 7 or 8pm)
- Go to sleep, you’ll probably wake up in the middle of the night. When that happens take another zzzquil and get a full night’s sleep
And you should be close to in sync with Hong Kong time in 1 or 2 nights (albeit waking up on the earlier side)
If you have time before your obligations to check into your hotel early & take a nap, do that.
If you can, upgrade to business class and get a lie flat seat. I also take extra strength sleep gummies how about a half hour before you sleep. As others have said, drink coffee when you wake up and force yourself to stay awake by getting a lot of fresh air and sunlight.
Set your watch to Hong Kong time, sleep according to the Hong Kong time in the flight, take sleep aid if necessary. Once you wake up in the morning in Hong Kong, your body will try to adapt to the morning conditions there due to the sleep and you will be able to go about your day after you land without any issues until you get to your accommodation in the evening, where you can crash that night again then you will get accustomed to the shift in time from then on.
If the ‘obligations’ have been put upon you by your employer, then push back.
If they want good work from you, then they need to fly you a day earlier at least (and then still take advantage of the good tips in other comments), OR, they can pay for a Business or First Class ticket, to help ensure that you arrive at business meetings fresh and sharp.
I switched my sleep ‘schedule’ a few days before by staying up longer and sleeping shorter periods (like 3 hours of sleep for 3 nights, no naps). Slept enough on the plane to be able to force myself to stay up until 11pm after arrival. Used melatonin to help knock me out at the hotel (doesn’t help to stay asleep). Was on Korean time from there.
Having and doing small physical activities helps stay awake. Nothing exhausting or strenuous. That includes things for the brain. Constantly drinking water (not caffeine or carbonated beverages) helps, too.
Going back from Asia will give you the real jetlag.
Vic said:
Going back from Asia will give you the real jetlag.
Huh? I find going west to be way worse than going east.
There is no one size fits all approach.
Stay hydrated, move around, eat light, avoid alcohol. Supplements like 1Above can help.
Business class with full lie-down seats so you can sleep.
Avoid alcohol on flights and at the airport, and sleep as much as possible (if that includes upgrading for little extra).
Only way to beat it faster is by having enough rest/sleep or boredom.
When you get there, force yourself awake through the whole day. Don’t exert yourself too much with sightseeing but maybe get some exercise or walk around so you are exhausted by the evening and go to bed at a reasonable hour. Avoid alcohol or weird foods for that day.
People say don’t take drugs but I find something light like Zzzquil (well that’s light for me) will help me stay asleep through the night and not wake up feeling groggy.
Try and adjust to the time zone 48 hours ahead. US to Asia is nowhere near as bad as coming back from Asia.
It’s tough for the human body to stockpile sleep so I find that it’s easier to caffeinate myself to be awake for 20+ hours and align that timeframe with nighttime at my destination. That way you’re tired as hell when it’s your bedtime at the local hour.
It’s tough. I used to use medicines like ambien and xanax, but ultimately found them counterproductive. My advice: always stay up. Go to bed at a normal time. Do whatever you have to do to stay awake until a normal bedtime.
You have a lot less control over when you wake up, and you will wake up at odd times for a while. If you can’t get back to sleep, no worries. Just start going about your day as best you can. The important part is that you resist the urge to go to bed early. A short (20 min) power nap in the afternoon might be alright, but I’d probably try to avoid that if possible.
This also goes for the plane ride. If it’s a daytime flight (even a long one) try to avoid dozing off.
It’s always easier to stay awake longer than it is to go back to sleep after you’ve woken up.
Go clubbing the night before and don’t sleep. Works like a charm.
I wonder why people say to avoid alcohol… that helps me knock out and sleep entire flight lol.
No matter what time you arrive, stay up till it’s your local bedtime…then drink till you pass out.
Always works.
Ambien.