Tired After Travel? How to Avoid Jet Lag With a Calculator

If you've ever wondered if there was a formula for how to avoid jet lag, you'll be happy to meet the Jet Lag Calculator! This nifty little web tool can help you to get over your jet lag symptoms much more quickly by resetting your body clock to match the time of your destination.

Jet Lag is the disturbance of your body clock as you travel across several time zones in a short amount of time. It mainly comes from the presence of absence of light when your body feels there should be or should not be light. Therefore, the Jet Lag Calculator uses a combination of sleep time adjustment and light exposure to come up with a customized plan for each person.

Does jet lag vary? Yes, in fact, your direction of travel determines how your body adjusts to the time. For example, when you travel east, your body adjusts one hour per day. When you travel west, however, your body adjusts two hours per day. It is important that these facts are taken into account before you catch your flight, which is why the Jet Lag Calculator sleep schedule actually starts three days before you fly and will continue two days after you're back home.

To use the Jet Lag Calculator, plug in your current location, where/when you are flying, and your bed time and wake time preferences.  Once all the information is entered, the calculator will come up with a customized sleep schedule according to your itinerary that outlines when you should be exposed to light (whether it be natural light or artificial light and when you should be in the dark sleeping).To make sure you don’t throw off your body clock, avoid closing the blinds, spending significant amounts of time in dark places, and wearing sunglasses during the times you need to be awake. All of those actions contribute to making you tired.

If you've tried this little tool on your next adventure (or know of any other amazing jet lag tips), let us know in the comments below! Read more jet lag FAQ’s here.