How to deal with the time change?

[emsimes]

Hey guys,
I would really appreciate some advice on this before my next visit to my SO!
We have a pretty big time difference between us...Germany is 9 hours ahead of California time. My problem is that whenever I visit him in Germany, I get so exhausted during the middle of the day, because midday in Germany is the middle of the night in California. I have such a hard time adjusting to the time change, and I always have to take a nap in the middle of the day for a few hours just to be able to function for the rest of the day :/
I feel like I've tried everything...drinking a ton of caffeine, going to sleep really early at night and sleeping in, etc. Nothing seems to work. Whenever I visit my SO, I usually stay for a month, and my body doesn't adjust to the change the entire time. This Christmas, I'm staying with him for 3 weeks, and I really don't want to have to worry about constantly being tired.

Any tips for getting used to the time change? Has anyone else had a hard time adjusting? If so, how did you handle it?
Thanks

[snow_girl]

You have to stay up as long as you can when you get off the plane, don't sleep on the plane depending on when you'll arrive. You just have to push through the first couple days, don't sleep drink coffee. Only sleep at night.

[Kiyama]

Yep, what snow_girl said. Don't sleep on the plane. Stay awake till bedtime and push through the first couple of days. No afternoon naps! Have you tryed taking. Melatonin at night? It's supposed to make you adapt faster to the new rhythm.

[emsimes]

You have to stay up as long as you can when you get off the plane, don't sleep on the plane depending on when you'll arrive. You just have to push through the first couple days, don't sleep drink coffee. Only sleep at night.

Oh ok, that makes sense. I usually sleep on the plane and then take a nap shortly after I get to my SO's place. I'll refrain from doing that next time.
Thanks for the advice

[emsimes]

Yep, what snow_girl said. Don't sleep on the plane. Stay awake till bedtime and push through the first couple of days. No afternoon naps! Have you tryed taking. Melatonin at night? It's supposed to make you adapt faster to the new rhythm.

Oh gosh, I really have been doing everything wrong ^^
Ive never tried Melatonin before, but I'll definitely try it this coming trip!
Thanks for the tip

[Anoulie]

Stay outside / in natural daylight as often as possible; it helps.
On your first day there, force yourself to stay up until ~ 10 pm (local time, of course) or whenever your normal bedtime would be. You'll be really tired, but it's so helpful.
If you're going East (e. g. to Germany), it's a different thing because on the first evening, you won't actually be tired yet (because if it's 10 pm in Germany, it's only 1 pm in California). A way to fix this would be to just get very little to no sleep the night before you come to Germany (this ties in with what others have said: Don't sleep on the plane!). When I went back to to Germany this summer, I only got two or three hours the night before. Usually I wouldn't have gotten tired until 5 am German time or so, but because of that lack of sleep, I easily fell asleep at my regular, German bedtime even though I wasn't even in Germany yet (I slept on the plane and arrived at 8 am local time, so I basically got a regular night of sleep).

[Fretboard_Magic]

Everyone says "don't sleep on the plane", but I have a different approach based on my own experience with many many flights I've taken between Japan and Canada(because I used to live there and I still have a place there, not because of my LDR). I ALWAYS sleep on the plane, but I never seem to get jet-lagged. I think that the biggest trick here is, as Anoulie has suggested, the sunlight more than anything else. Also, staying extra active/busy during the first couple of days, in conjunction with being under the sun as much as possible, has been known to be very effective. I wouldn't really fear sleeping on the plane much because, in a way, it could be used to your advantage if you did it right, I think. I often find myself doing that because I tend to stay up really late the previous day to pack and whatnot, and I'm usually really tired by the time I board the plane, lol. So crashing during my flights has become something I could even look forward to, lol. xD But I'm out and about when I arrive to, let's say Canada for instance which is 17 hours behind Japan, and being exposed to the outside air and sunlight, plus generally being out and active, seem to help regulate my biological clock pretty fast. Even being out at night with friends seems to help in my case. I don't see why it wouldn't work for others as well. *shrugs*

[lucybelle]

I always sleep on the plane as well. When I go to Europe the plane usually leaves in the evening (5pm or so) and gets to Europe in the morning (10am or so). I do my best to sleep everything I can on the plane. Then when I get there I eat breakfast and stay up until siesta time (2 or 3 pm). Take an hour nap or so, then go to bed when I should that night. Usually I am only jet-lagged the first day.

[Anoulie]

Sleeping on the plane or not really depends on at what time your flight is. If it's an overnight flight (night at the location you're flying to), by all means, go to sleep on the plane. If not, don't. The idea is simply to sleep when you would at your destination.

[Tooki]

I only recommend sleeping if you're on an overnight flight (European time!*!*). As others have said, try to stay up as much as you can on the first day. The later that you can fall asleep, the sooner that your body can adjust to the time difference.

(It usually takes me about 2-3 days to properly adjust to 7 hour time difference.)

[emsimes]

Thanks for all the advice!
My flight leaves from LAX early in the afternoon, but I don't arrive in Germany till 1 pm the next day, so I'm sure I'll have to get a bit of sleep. And I do like the idea of staying outside and keeping active the first few days as well.
Thanks again

[Radec]

I've never been able to do anything to help. Its one or two days sleeping weird then its fine.