Thanks for all the good suggestions! I haven't heard anybody suggest "Drink six double bourbons and a gallon of Freshpoo as soon as you get on board, then spend the entire flight watching kung fu movies and doing yoga in the aisles!" so at least I think I'm on the right track here.
Originally Posted by
PsiFighter37
Maybe wait until wheels are up or at least pushing back until you pop the pill? Last thing you'd want to do is end up getting cancelled at the gate for maintenance and you end up having to get carried off
Originally Posted by
cblaisd
...and leave your shoes on for at least 2 minutes after takeoff too.
Originally Posted by
UAL250
...you don't want to risk being drowsy if there's an emergency.
Seems like a strong vote in favor of caution with the pill. For what it's worth, I use Unisom's over-the-counter pills (doxylamine succinate, same stuff as in NyQuil) rather than Ambien or another prescription pill, and I've been doing it for enough years to have a good baseline. They don't knock me out; they just make me sleepy enough to encourage sleep (and really help me get
back to sleep after mid-flight bathroom trips). Still,
UAL250's comment is hard to argue with. The benefit of getting to sleep 20 minutes earlier might not be worth the tiny but real risk of being drowsy in an emergency.
Originally Posted by
sbm12
Skip the lounge food and have a real meal before going to the airport or at the airport. Don't drink so much. Sleep wheels up to final approach. And, as noted, if taking a sleeping pill not until you're above 10k feet.
Originally Posted by
jmanirish
...and if skipping crappy lounge food isn't enough of a reason, most sleeping pills are to be taken on an empty stomach (as food decreases its efficiency).
As usual,
sbm12 makes excellent points. I'm going to have to think hard about the "LH lounge vs. real meal" question; my inner cheapskate rebels at paying for dinner when I could scrounge a decent free one. If we were talking about the UC here, it'd be no contest, but the LH lounge food is usually acceptable.
And, yeah, booze. Good point. I've never had a worse cold than my first flight to Oz when I went overboard on QF's free (decent!) wine in Y, then woke up feeling like I was going to die. But grad school habits die really hard. Passing up free booze seems immoral.
Originally Posted by
JBord
...get up really early (whatever that is for you) the day of the flight. As others have said, have a decent meal at the airport.
Now, that's an interesting point. I'm going to be getting up pretty early anyway... it's tempting to just see if I'm tired enough to sleep unaided. Unfortunately, I'm hitting 40 this year, and one of the gifts of maturity (for me) is that exhaustion doesn't equal ability to sleep. More importantly, I
will get up to use the facilities, and I usually can't get
back to sleep (on a plane) without chemical aid.
Maybe I can find a way to exercise really, really hard that day...
Originally Posted by
rankourabu
...only you can decide whether you want to waste another 1-2 hours of United food/IFE, etc.
Originally Posted by
sannmann
...it was a good 2.5 hours after takeoff until the dinner service was completed...
I think the right decision is clear. The only part of the BF package that I'll really miss is the pretzel roll. Maybe I can get them to save me one for breakfast...
