Your worst jetlag experience?
 

Over the years, I've learnt that jetlag is something you learned to cope with or mitigate with pills or sleep/activity patterns. But its not something you can really overcome. You try to get around it, but the effects will always be there if you fly across more than X number of time zones.

So, what is the worst jetlag experience you've had?

Coming back from BKK to CLT earlier this year.

The DW and I were wiped out for days!

Coming back from Oz a few years back, MEL-LAX on VA in Z. I think the open, help yourself bar in the VA biz class area contributed... Live and learn!

Anytime I sleep through the entire trip.

I spent a large part of my career working at a rotational job site where everyone worked 4 weeks then went home for 4 weeks. 1 1/2 day commute across 3 continents to get there. Every meeting I ever attended included half the people yawning almost constantly and at least 1 or 2 nodding off.

I was so asleep while riding a train in Geneva that when it stopped, I manually opened the door on the wrong side of the train and stepped into the tunnel. It took me longer than I would have thought to realize it.

Just recently, I was in a store not longer after a flight and looked up and literally had no idea where I was. Genuinely started to panic. Had to stop, calm down, and pull out my phone to see where I was.

If I had a dollar for every meeting I've fallen a asleep in...

No kidding...

During a trip in 2006, I had just landed in Bombay when I got on a train at the Cotton Green station. It must've been the jet lag because I had apparently boarded the women-only carriage. I hastily jumped off the slowly-moving (it never did stop at any station) train, bruised my knee and then jumped into another carriage.

Your worst jetlag experience?
 

HNL-CDG. Years ago flying F. Thought I would try timing melatonin across two nights of flying. Ended up with worst jet lag ever. The Paris part of the trip is still a blur. Lucky there were three more weeks about the EU.

The adage that it takes one day for each hour of time change is absolutely my experience. The trouble is that most of my 8-hour time change trips are for only six days so I'm out for basically two weeks.

Although technically not 'jet lag', the curse of rotating shifts is horrid.
In a previous life, I worked in the nuclear navy (US). While bringing a new aircraft carrier to life (CVN-74), we were worked to death.
Rotating shifts:
5 days 1st shift (0700-1700), one day off.
5 days 2nd shift (1300-2300), two days off.
5 days of 3rd shift (2200-0800), three days off...then repeat from the top.
On one occasion, I walked into the #2 reactor control room (EOS), and found all five operators sound asleep at their stations.

My first real jet lag was the first time I traveled to Asia and back to the U.S.

I thought jet lag was just a description for feeling tired or having sleep patterns disrupted for a night or two, so wasn't really prepared.

The day after returning, I slogged through work in that tired but still-amped-up way. No problem.

The next day started out OK, maybe a little tired. I went out for a run and just about fainted. I had to sit down while my heart raced, then walked back home. Then later, I was sitting at a friend's house and again almost fainted..just felt really nauseous and lightheaded.

After that, it was fine. I experienced the same thing each subsequent trip, but was prepared...it's always two days after the return for me.

Your worst jetlag experience?
 

Last year I reputed my ear drum on a trip to Asia, for the flight back I took medication and slept 12 of the 14 hour flight. We landed at 11:30 pm, and I was wide awake. It took almost 2 weeks to get straightened out after that.

I don't suffer much at all from jet lag, but one trip really got me--flew PHL-LAX and stayed for three days, then flew LAX-SVO. My five days in Moscow were absolutely awful. But generally I am pretty free of problems due to my ability to just stay awake for a really long time on the day I arrive, so that I go to bed at the "normal" time for that time zone. Usually by the second day I'm fine.

Mine was YUL-ZRH where I arrived 6am local time...then flew out 10pm local time to Honk Kong. By the time I got to the hotel in HK, I was totally out of it.

I've experienced similar issues, physiologically speaking. Sometimes my brain just goes haywire. I also check my blood sugar levels pretty closely and notice that after a significant flight (say anything over a six to seven time zone change), my readings can take weeks to get completely back to normal.

African American Microsoft Chairman John Thompson blames you. If you have jet lag, it is your fault and shows you are crazy. He says it's all psychological. See http://www.businessinsider.com/how-t...jet-lag-2015-2

Hogwash. If he is so smart, he should join Isis then surrender to the Israelis, who will sleep deprive him. Then he can reiterate his claim that it's all in his head.
I am rarely violent but I wanted to slap him for saying that.

Your worst jetlag experience?
 

For a variety of reasons, I flew SXM-PHL-SFO-KIX-SIN-AKL-NAN over about 72hrs. It became surreal and difficult to adjust once I got to Fiji. I also felt ridiculous because I did all that only to realize I'd merely left one island to be on another.

Last week, I flew SXM-HND for four days. Went back to MIA for two and then backtracked to LAS. My sleep is still a little off :(

When i came back from Sydney

I lasted a week :eek:

I think my first visit to Japan (FRA-NRT) must have been the worst, as my body, for whatever reason, simply refused to adjust to the time zone.

Never had that problem again afterwards. I usually have a body that adjust pretty well and fortunately jet lags are not things I am troubled with very often.

One thing I have learned, though, is that the more often I travel between timezones, the easier my body gets to it and the less jet lag or similar symptoms I face.

Worst one due to my own stupidity was at Glastonbury music festival, flew in from JFK the same day. I felt nauseaus and completely disassociated from reality during my body's night hours. Of course insane amounts of alcohol didn't help the cause.

Another bad one was after JNU-SVO. It's exactly 12 hours difference. Talk about very boring nights and feeling like a hot steaming pile of... during the day.

Thinking back, easiest one was after JNU-PKC. It's 22 or 23 hours difference, so in all reality, it was a simple 1 hours difference in time, just the next day.

End of January this year I flew from ORD to SYD, stayed there a week then came back. About 10 days later I did ORD to BOM. ... I'm still recovering.

I usually don't fare well with jet lag, but this combo has been the worst thus far. Europe doesn't really bug me any more. Anything in Asia Pac kills me..

From Denver to Moscow in the summer. 10hr time change.
There was light until about midnight, then started getting light again at 2am. It was never dark enough, long enough, for my body to figure out what was going on, just had to gut through it.

YYZ-ZRH-LHR-CDG-NRT-HKG-YYZ in ten days. Arrived home on Valentines Day. My wife had prepared a lovely meal. I fell asleep at the table.

WDH-JNB-JFK-YYZ knocks the stuffing out of me. I did it earlier this year and it took me three days to recover.

Yeah, I have the same problem traveling to Asia (and it looks like several other posters here have the same issue). TPAC flights seems to be the worse in terms of jet lag effect. By contrast, when flying to Europe (well...Western Europe anyway), the jet lag effect is not as severe or pronounced.

Not sure entirely why, maybe it has something to do with crossing the international date line?

Direction of travel and the effect on jet lag has been well-studied, and due to the natural shift in daily sleep cycle that we all experience, traveling toward the East produces the most pronounced jet lag. A well-researched area, but here are three cites:

http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/yellowbo...tation/jet-lag

http://www.humankinetics.com/excerpt...ue-and-jet-lag

http://www.washingtonpost.com/nation...58f_story.html

But if you live in North America, flying to Asia means you are flying westward, and if you travel to Europe, you are flying eastward. In theory, that should have meant flying to Europe will have more severe jet lag than flying to Asia.

But that is not case for me and several other posters here. I think the extra time zones due to crossing the date line when flying to Asia outweigh any benefits from flying in a western direction.

It is the total # of time zones (i.e., distance) crossed and the direction that matters. Simply crossing an imaginary demarkation (International Date Line) has no effect. You can test that out by crossing the equator, another imarginary demarkation.

Well, direction seem to have less impact to me when I fly then the number of time zones I have to cross that is the real kicker.

On the date line, I would have agree, except, the countries of the world set their date by it, so you are either adding or subtracting a whole day when you cross it, and that has very real effects on jet leg, even if the line itself is imaginary. ;)

Ask the people in Alofi, Niue if they have jet lag when the cross the dateline into waters belonging to Samoa or New Zealand. I suspect that they will tell you they don't.

Obviously, but you are ignoring my point. I'm not talking about such short distances. :rolleyes:

I'm talking about the time zones, you cross a lot more time zones when cross the date line than you don't. Therefore the date line does have a strong effect on jet lag that way.

While I respect that any particular individual may have an idiosyncratic experience, the wealth of data in the field of circadian rhythms make it clear that travel in the Westerly direction conforms to normal daily rhythmic changes and therefore allows for easier adaptation. No need for me to roll my eyes on this....

My worst experience was after a huge night out in Cancun and only an hour's sleep. I then took a flight without sleeping to Miami and then onto London. I landed at 6am and turned up at the office to show willing. Unfortunately the .... had just hit the fan and I ended up doing Excel modelling until 11pm.

The last few hours I had to change the resolution down on my monitor as my vision had gotten so bad that I wasn't able to read the numbers.

I have heard about/read studies, but I don't really care.. sometimes I just feel like crap even when I am "supposed" to feel better than on some other flights. Yes, I did say that Asia Pac is the worst, which is very consistent, and Europe is usually fairly easy, but there have been exceptions.

One exception to note is that I always feel terrible after going to Brazil. It's far, but not in terms of time zones, but for some reason it'll take me a few days to recover..... and I promise it's not just too many caipirinha's when I'm in Rio!

My first trip to Europe many years ago as a college student visiting family, I made the mistake of going directly to bed after landing in the morning. Slept until 3 p.m. and never got back on track. For the next two weeks I was up all night and sleeping most of the day and very cranky.

Second worst experience was my second trip to Singapore. I landed on a Friday and thought I'd given myself enough time to acclimate before beginning 4 consecutive days of training presentations on Sunday. I did okay for the first two days, but it really hit me on Tuesday. I remember standing up in front of the room, swaying back and forth, and my participants laughing at me saying, "You're jet-lagged!"

Mine was the return leg of an Antarctic expedition. We flew USH-SSA-DUS-LHR-BAH, and it might have taken me over a week to fully recover from the jet lag.

I don't travel longhaul alot.

My worst experience would have to be this summer in the United States. I headed to Florida for five weeks and adjusted to their time zone. While the five hour time difference isn't alot the flight messed it up for me.

Flight left at 11pm and arrived at 10am, however, it was more like 5am for me. I didn't get any sleep because I don't sleep on planes and even if I did sleep it would've only been for 3 hours. Then when I got home I slept all day so I messed it up even more. It was daylight 1 hour into the flight.

After that I did try and sleep but my brain refused to switch off before 5am in the morning. Eventually I just gave up and stayed upto 3am everynight watching sitcoms.. I did get it fixed but it took me three weeks.

I don't know how people adjust to 10 hours of eastbound jetlag nevermind 5. I always read people online telling you to goto bed at a normal time but they seem to forget that you will not be tired at the "normal time". I will be booking the day flight with Aer Lingus this summer.

Not true for me. It takes me about 2 days to adjust to 5 hours westbound and 2 weeks eastbound.

Eastbound transatlantic fights are hellish in the summer.. Dark and then 1 hour later is broad daylight.

Thats exactly what I did this summer lol. It took me forever to fix

SIN-LHR-DEN last July and I caught something nasty on the plane. Jet lagged for week+ and in and out of the hospital for 3 days.