What was I thinking? Here I had been religiously following Dr. Charles F. Ehret’s treatment for jet lag symptoms for years on my international or cross-US trips, and then suddenly I throw caution to the wind and arrive in England for some castle-hopping and get hit with such bad jet lag that I have to beg my travel companion to get back to the hotel, pronto.
Oh, that’s right! I know what happened: The VIP lounge and Business Class travel happened. Bring on the Pouilly Fuisse wine! The gourmet food! And I was so atwitter at the thought of a week without being glued to my laptop and finally getting to go all touristy and visit “rich in history, myths, legends and mysteries” Stonehenge and the famous city of Roman Baths and Jane Austen, that I didn’t stop chatting, put down my glass of wine, turn off my overhead light and call it a night well before the witching hour.
Actually, I felt just fine for about the first ten hours after the plane landed, though I didn’t sleep well. It was really the second day when I was riding shotgun and in charge of navigation that I began to fade and lose it, particularly on the rotaries. My brain stopped functioning. “Which way? Which way?” my companion asked, as we went round and round the same rotary. “Don’t drive so fast. Slow down. I can’t think,” I replied.
We finally made it to a destination, but all I wanted to do was climb into the backseat and sleep. Instead, I gamely staggered around, trying to be cheerful. An awful day.
Luckily, I knew how to crawl back onto Dr. Ehret’s 3-Step System right away, and that made a huge difference. I immediately implemented his postflight regimen, starting with the right luncheon foods for high energy and then at dinner, switching to low energy foods (and a little wine, I confess!). I still felt pretty awful until the next day, but slept better that night, and instead of six days of escalating jet lag, I nipped it in the bud, so to speak.
Now, had I followed the entire 3-Step System — without a lapse in flight — I could have prevented ALL jet lag symptoms. I would have been just fine in the rotaries! Lesson re-learned — the hard way.
December 7th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
After a flight from NYC to Cape Town via Johannesburg (during which, I admittedly overindulged in the superb SA wines and meals on offer), I arrived at my friend’s apartment where I was to spend two weeks enjoying the many diversions on offer in that glorious city. That didn’t happen. Thanks to incapacitating jet lag, I missed three quarters of the first week’s daylight hours and a third of the second. I literally could not awake from the coma-like sleep that engulfed me nightly. And even when I was awake, I felt like I was operating in slow motion and in a bit of a haze. “Zombi-like” is how my dear friend described me.
Lesson learned. An expensive and much-anticipated trip was ruined because I fell foul of jet lag.
I’ve actually bought six copies of “The Cure for Jet Lag” (two of which were free… what a bonus!!). I’m keeping two for me (in case one gets lost) and am giving the other four to my favorite globe-trotting pals as Christmas gifts. They’ll be thanking me for years to come.
December 7th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
Obviously, My Dear, you are still suffering from the symptoms of belated jet lag or perhaps still under the influence of the Burgundy fog. We in the UK prefer the author’s original surname spelling “Austen” to that of the Texan Capital “Austin” named in honour of Stephen F. Austin.
December 10th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
My worst jet-lag experience was the return to New York from a trek in Sikkim, formerly an indpendent Himalayan kingdom -anyone remember Hope Cooke? – now part of India. After three gruelling weeks, ascending from leech-infested rain forests to the snowy, frigid slopes of Kachenjunga, the third highest mountain in the world, where we climbed to 17,000 ft. before the toe-numbing descent. Flying across India meant dealing with the unexpected; half a day’s wait in Siliguri for a flight to Delhi where we transferred for the flight to London, only to be unceremoniously dumped in Mubai because they needed the cabin space to transport a spare jet engine. I almost missed my connection at Heathrow but somehow caught the last flight of the day to JFK. I had to go straight back to work , tortured by jet-lag. If only I’d had “THE CURE”. I’m off to buy copies for Christmas presents, keeping the free one of course.
Lynne, you’ve done a huge service to the traveling public by updating and republishing “THE CURE FOR JET LAG”.