Tips on beating jet lag.

Before coming to Australia I was really dreading the jet lag. I didn't really want to make a habit of napping through the day and missing out on what was going on. Through some divine miracle, I didn't really suffer any when I got here, so I thought i'd write up what I did to avoid it in case it helps anyone else!

The information in this post is based on my flight time, but how you deal with jet leg depends on the time of your flight/duration/time change between destinations. 

My flight details:

Manchester Airport Terminal 1

Flight departure 8:30pm

Dubai Airport

Flight Arrival: 7:45 (local time)
*2 hour wait*

Flight Departure: 10:15am
Time difference compared to back home: +4hrs

Melbourne Airport 

Flight Arrival: 6:35am (local time)

Time difference compared to back home: +11hrs 

1. Start as you mean to go on. Because the time difference between England & Australia was +11hrs, this meant that I was pretty much sleeping the complete opposite of what I do now. The night before I set off I tried to sleep as much as I could so I could then stay up all night on the plane the night after.
2. Adapt your sleeping early on the plane. To get a real good head start on beating the lag, I decided that on the plane I would sleep Australian time instead of British. This meant that straight away on my 7 hour flight to Dubai I had to do an all nighter. The excitement helped to keep me awake, and the TV kept me occupied for a good few hours. I tried to keep myself doing different things so I wouldn't get bored like watching a movie, then reading a chapter of my book, then watching an episode of one of my favourite TV series, then maybe write up a blog post or speak to people back home on Facebook (yes that's right, I had WiFi on the plane).
3. Walk around a lot. You should also do this to avoid deep vein thrombosis, but getting up every couple hours or so to stretch your legs, even if it isn't for the toilet, helps you stay up. 
4. Drink a lot of water. Keeping refreshed and hydrated is very important, and luckily the drinks on board my flight were free, so I just kept myself stocked up with water and it really helped to keep me awake.
5. Plane food sucks, but eat as much as you can. Keeping your energy up will help to keep you awake so try and eat as much of the nasty plane food as you can.
6. When it's time to sleep, sleep. This might have been a lot easier for me had there not been a screaming baby for 80% of my second flight.
7. Keep yourself busy. When I arrived, I had plenty to be sorting out and didn't really get chance to sit down and relax. I was up walking most of the day sorting out my phone contract, bank account and shopping for my room essentials. At around 4pm I went to sit on campus to use the WiFi and let everyone know at home that I made it here safe. After half an hour I could feel my eyes getting heavy so went for a walk around campus then back to my room to unpack. I finally let myself sleep around 7pm and slept right through until 8am.

Other people might have more tips/find that the complete opposite of some of these works for them! But after finding I didn't suffer with jet lag at all, I thought i'd share what worked for me. I'll be re-testing these on my way home in 3 and a half months.
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