The anti jet lag diet

5 days! Errr…I kind of have to live one of those days twice (so I’m actually completely confused), but it all works out in the end!

There are people who say things like, “Oh, jet lag doesn’t affect me.” Well, I say boo to that, sirs and ma’ams! Jet lag is a problem for me! I usually can’t sleep very much on airplanes and spend several days awake at the wrong times and sleepy at the wrong times.

Random-fact-I-picked-up-from-the-infallible-internet: Did you know that the time you are most likely to make mistakes when you are jet lagged is between 3 and 5 am in your home time zone? I just read that this week and thought it was pretty interesting. Unfortunately, for me, that will be noon to 2pm in Central Standard Time. Slightly inconvenient!

In the quest for a jet lag remedy, I came across some interesting things. I’m definitely not doing the melatonin thing, which is popular in some circles. Also, am I the only one who gets melanin and melatonin mixed up?

Another nixed idea is taking sleeping medicine once aboard the plane. Although my seatmates would probably be in favor of this plan, it has mixed reviews online. Why would my seatmates be in favor of this plan? Well, I get to sit here for my long-haul flight:

00   000e0   00

(I’m the e.)

In my searches, I did find a remedy that I want to attempt this year. I have a willing human subject (me) and I’m ready to go. This year, I am going to try the slightly-kooky-yet-generally-harmless anti jet lag diet.

Well, I say harmless. But it requires caffeine deprivation for all but a few random hours each day. This makes me a little sad.

The diet alternates days of light eating with days of plenty. I am looking forward to the days of plenty. Things kick off tomorrow with a light day, unfortunately. A light food day AND no caffeine.

But I am really interested to see if it will work! And if it doesn’t, it’s not like I’ll be any worse off than I would have been had I not tried it.

Also, one is supposed to drink something like eight ounces of water for every hour aboard the plane. That is a lot of water. Ergh!

And if you look at this posting date, you may see it listed as December 19th. But I haven’t been to bed on the 18th yet, so I think it belongs to the 18th. It’s possible that I had a little too much caffeine today in anticipation of the deprivation.

And going back to mixed-up words, how about deprivation and depravation? Very different!!

Good night, friends!