When traveling international, everyone has to deal with the dreaded jet lag. I always want to take advantage of all the time I have available so i knew i wanted to avoid this as best as possible. I did what any reasonable person would do before a trip…I researched on Pinterest. After reading many different blogs, I compiled my list of “How Hannah is going to avoid jet leg”. The question now is, “Did it work?”. Let me break it down then.

Before

The very first thing I did to prepare was determine what I would need for my trip and accumulate everything. I spent weeks on weeks going through outfit options and all the possible scenarios that would result in needing specific items. Now, I can tell you right now that it ended up being helpful. I may not have brought everything I ended up needing, however, there were some items that I ended up needing. I will go through all that in my Items Packed for Greece, so for now, my piece of advice is to think about what you couldn’t find at your destination. A better question might even be, “What could you possibly need at 3 a.m. and you couldn’t wait?” Some might say that I am overly cautious when packing. I can see that, however, I also see someone needing something I brought because they never thought about it. I don’t mind being that person for everyone. Let me share a story that will get you thinking about bringing those “just in case” items on your next trip.
Tightness. The jolt of tightness in my chest had me lunge from the bed at three in the morning. This feeling is nothing new for me. You wouldn’t think that would be coming from a twenty-five year old but it is true. I know this feeling and there is usually one cause. It is hard when you can get a reaction from your prescriptions. This does not seem like a major reaction and for some people, that may be correct. This feeling, however, gives me the sharpness of a blade. I have had this feeling a few times before and it is usually a result of taking my medication on an empty stomach. Sometimes it does take a while to affect me, however, every instance was directly after an empty stomach. You might be asking, “What is the point of this story?” Well, what cures heartburn? I always have an emergency stash of TUMS. I woke up in the middle of the night, on a boat, in a foreign country… TUMS would be impossible to find. I was able to take some, return to sleep before we docked, and was able to explore the beautiful island of Santorini.
The second thing I did to prepare was to adjust my sleep schedule. Everyone thought I was crazy. I normally wake up around six in the morning so I decided to wake up at four in the morning instead. It seems crazy at first, however, we had a nine hour difference on our trip. Once you start waking up earlier, your body decides that you should go to bed earlier. Our traveling started at nine on Friday. Our first leg was four hours to Toronto and our second leg was then ten hours to Athens. As soon as we took off from Toronto, I decided to sleep. Well… I actually fell asleep before take off… we may have left six in the evening in Toronto but my phone was now on Athens time. That meant that I was going to sleep at one in the morning instead! I couldn’t adjust to this all on my own. Let me share my nighttime routine for my flight.

During

I took a Benadryl to start off. I only take Benadryl in the evenings for my allergies because it definitely makes me sleepy. This means that I had to wait to take any allergy medicine until Toronto… Luckily, it wasn’t that rough. Once on the plane, I grabbed my packing cube with my flight essentials. I will explain my packing list in another post but I did want to mention that packing cubes work in your carry on to help divide all your items. This packing cube had my inflatable neck pillow, eye mask, ear plugs, headphones, compression socks, and fuzzy socks. I have to put my compression socks on while in the pressurized airplane because my feet do not like them otherwise. I choose to have my compression socks without covering my toes so I needed fuzzy socks to cover my feet. I also pulled out my toiletry bag to grab those essentials. My toiletry bag was packed in the order I needed my items. I had baby wipes and a hydration face mask in the first pocket. Baby wipes are helpful while flying because they do not count as a liquid while being helpful in those messy situations. In this case, I washed my face without having to get up. The hydration mask I used this time was from Neutrogena. I may have looked weird but it helped. The ladies know what I’m talking about. Your eyes just want to be closed. Again, I know. It sounds weird but you do what you need to do. Specifically, I started by changing my socks and then moved onto wiping my face. Once the sheet mask was applied, I placed my sleep mask on my head. I only needed to insert my ear plugs on this departing flight while an extra layer of noise canceling was needed on our returning flight. Sleeping with over the ear headphones can be tricky. My inflatable neck pillow took five seconds to shape. I prepared all of this while waiting to depart. I actually do not remember taking off. I was only able to sleep two hours at a time so I was able to adjust and reposition.

After

We landed. I have slept for a total of four to five hours. That is not a lot, however, I’ve done less time at home so I knew it was manageable. We landed at eleven in the morning. I had two goals for Saturday: eat as soon as we land and stay out of my room until after dinner. This was the most tricky to complete as I now have to follow the lead of the group. We started off by getting lost on our way to the hotel. Even though we landed at eleven, we arrived at our hotel around four in the afternoon. Once there, I went up to the pool while everyone else stayed in the room. Guess who was the only one that stayed awake. We ended up eating dinner super early. I mean super early because Greeks do not eat until late. After dinner, there is no reason to stay awake anymore. I went to bed around seven-thirty at night on Saturday. That was the last day my sleep was affected while in Europe.

My preparation to avoid jet leg worked for my trip. I made a plan that I knew I could follow. My family members did not adjust for a few days. My husband will make comments about how I’m the only one that avoided jet leg, however, something tells me that he does not plan on preparing his sleep for our next trip.