I often fly east to west (Europe to North America, North America to Asia) and find the best way to cope, for me, is to eat lightly, take caffeine only in the morning to afternoon origin time, set my watch to destination time once the aircraft has pushed back and only take a nap or two whilst traveling. Once I arrive, if there is any daylight left, I try to get some outside time and get daylight exposure (it has to do with the optic nerve and stimulating the brain and melatonin production) and stay up until 9 or so local time.

I vary this a bit if the flight is the occasional US - Japan redeye and try to wake up late the day of departure, eat lightly and avoid caffeine, once on the aircraft set my watch, sleep an hour or so and then keep myself busy with IFE, reading, whatever once we have hit the point at destination time we would be awake.

When I do this, I usually awaken at 6:00 AM local time, just like home, eat a larger than normal breakfast with plenty of caffeine, live a normal day - pretty soon I am on target with local time zone.

West to east, I eat lightly day of departure, try to get some sleep and awake in accordance with destination time. Then it's time to have a breakfast snack and some caffeine, and once I hit the ground live a normal day, staying up as long as I can to approximate a usual bed time for me.

This also means keeping well hydrated and avoiding most alcohol and airline food - regardless of class of travel. And at the beginning, plan and pack easily with lots of anticipation - stressors like last minute packing and not sleeping make the changes worse.

In the sixties I was part of an armed forces troubleshooting team - within two hours we might be deployed anywhere in the world, and once we got there we had to be functional (as troubleshooters, we were called in only when the situation was beyond local remedy). This is pretty much what we did then - and I found some of the recommendations in the "Overcoming Jet Lag" book published by Lynne W. Scanlon and Charles F. Ehret, Ph.D., using research for diplomats (e.g. Henry Kissinger) who also must be functional when they hit the ground at their destination.