Fighting Jet Lag to Perform
I am working on a multi part series on goal setting, but I need a bit more time to organize my thoughts. In the meantime, I wanted to share a few of my thoughts on what I have personally experienced when trying to adjust quickly to large time changes, particularly when traveling eastward over multiple time zones (6+ hours). Moreover, when the purpose of the trip is to race/perform at a high level, it adds additional layers of complexity that go beyond simply trying to sleep through the night or stay awake during the day.
As I discuss the following protocols, I want to emphasize that this is merely a reflection of what I have found to work for me. It is not necessarily a protocol to follow dogmatically, but perhaps there is something you can glean from it, whether you find yourself relating to my experience and constraints or not.
A couple things that apply specifically to me:
Travel has always been particularly stressful on me when it comes to performance. I don’t seem to adjust as well as some of my peers (regardless of time change). With that in mind, I tended to always add one travel day on the front end of most races I did whereas some of my friends did not.
I rarely sleep on airplanes, even when they are overnight/red eye.
As a basic heuristic, it has often been said that it takes one day/hour of time change to fully adjust to the new time zone you are in. So if you travel from my home in Boulder, Colorado to Central Europe, you are looking at 8 hours of time change, making 8 days the supposed minimum to be fully adjusted.
This may very well be true (for most people), but I have often been faced with other constraints that would not allow me to travel that far out, even if it was optimal.
So the next question became: how can I speed up that process and get as close to optimally adjusted as I can while also balancing the need to be rested enough for race day?
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The first thing I have experimented with has been the choice of travel/flight timing. In my experience(s), this has typically meant traveling from Denver International Airport to various places in Europe.
First, if there is a direct flight, I always take it, but this is limited to only a few major European hubs, like London, Frankfurt and Munich.
The more complex question is whether smaller airport destinations (Stockholm, Copenhagen. Nice, etc.) should involve an East Coast connection in the U.S. followed by a Transatlantic flight or whether it’s better to fly to Europe directly and taking a shorter continental connection (for example, in 2023 I could fly to Frankfurt and then to Stockholm, or to JFK in NYC and then to Stockholm).
I have done both, and for me, the choice is connecting on the East Coast before proceeding overseas.
The reason I do this is because the East Coast connection tends to give me an early arrival into Europe. While this typically eats up the first day of travel because it starts much earlier, it gives me almost a full day in the new destination. Going back to my last Stockholm example, when I traveled via JFK it had me arriving at 8:00 a.m., but if I went through Germany, I would not get there until 2-3 in the afternoon.
If I was somebody that sleeps easily on flights, I might take the longer direct flight to Europe, but since I am lucky to get 1-3 hours on most flights, I think the shorter flight (usually 7 instead of 9-10 hours) works better.
Additionally, this strategy gives me almost a full day of sunlight in the new location.
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Ok, so now I have arrived. I have been traveling for 12-20 hours and I have logged about 1-3 hours of broken sleep at most.
How do I handle this when I have to race in 3-4 days?
It starts with what I do before traveling. As I lead into these big trips, I try to sleep in as much as I can and I also avoid overly stressful training days in the final 36-48 hours. I have often seen/read people suggest that you start to try and adjust yourself to the new time zone while still at home, but I find this process to only create additional stress for me and I have found more value is banking rest/sleep rather than trying to gradually wake up earlier to mitigate the effects of time change.
Next, when I am in the new location, I try to keep moving throughout the day. This can be easy to do in a fun place like Stockholm, where you can sightsee and visit different places, but even if that isn’t the case, continually moving about to avoid dosing off is what I chose to do.
In certain cases, I will do some light training, but this is not a requirement. Moreover, I typically wait until later in the afternoon as the final thing to do after settling into accommodations, getting groceries, etc.
I never nap on this day. Never.
The first night I am typically so tired that it is easy to fall asleep and I generally sleep through the night.
However, if I wake up and seem to not be able to fall back asleep, I get up and read (no tech) a book that is fiction and light (think beach read, not Ulysses) and wait until I start to feel sleepy again and then lie back down. More often than not, this gets me sleeping again.
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From there, I use the following basic protocol:
Day one: Arrive from overnight flight. Move throughout the day. Light Training.
Day two: Wake up between 6:00-6:30 regardless of how sleep went. Do at least one session before 8:00 a.m. No Naps allowed. Easy intensity training.
Day three: Wake up between 6:00-6:30 regardless of how sleep went. Do at least one session before 8:00 a.m. Naps allowed. Easy/moderate intensity training.
Day 4+: If today is race day, we race. If I have more days available, I let myself sleep in on any remaining days and put no constraints on training timing. Moreover, with more days I will typically begin to insert a bit more effort into sessions rather than sticking to easy/moderate intensity.
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Some questions or thoughts that might come up:
Why do I stop getting up early after day three? Won’t that inhibit the time adjustment?
Maybe. However, the reason I do this is because I am pivoting towards the importance of getting maximum rest following the adjustment period rather than focusing on adjustment over rest.
Additionally, because I used two mornings to train early already, I have asked my body to perform at that time of day, albeit at an easier intensity, so it is not a total shock to the system.
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One final thought.
Even though I have not traveled to Europe to race or train as frequently as others, even having a protocol that only gets used 1x/year can lead to a habituation that the body seems to recognize. Therefore, we do not always need to do something many, many times to develop a sense of confidence in its effectiveness. Even doing something as seldom as once a year can lead to the development of success and effective routines.
