The Jet Lag Protocol: How to Arrive Already Adjusted
A clinic-tested protocol for transatlantic and long-haul travel, built around light timing, melatonin micro-doses, and meal timing.
Daniel, Somnia Editor 7 min
Jet lag is not the flight — it is the circadian mismatch between your internal clock and your new local time. The intervention has to happen before, during and after the flight. Below is the version we give to patients who travel for a living.
Three days before
Shift your bedtime by one hour per day in the direction of your destination. Eastward: earlier. Westward: later.
On the flight
- Set your watch to destination time at boarding. Eat and sleep on that schedule, not the cabin's.
- Hydrate: cabin air is drier than the Sahara and dehydration mimics jet lag.
- Skip alcohol and skip the in-flight coffee. Both deepen the disruption.
On arrival
- Get outside in daylight within the first 90 minutes — light is the single strongest circadian signal we have.
- If arriving in the morning, do not nap longer than 20 minutes before 3 p.m.
- Take 0.3 mg of melatonin 4 hours before your target bedtime for the first three nights — not the 5 mg gummies sold at airports.
- Eat your first local-time breakfast as soon as possible. The gut clock follows food.
Done properly, this protocol cuts jet lag duration by roughly half. Done casually, you lose a week of every trip to recovery.