Deliberately Fall Asleep Like Shit Before Flying With Red Eyes
I just flew in from Copenhagen (as part of our Hack the World series) and boy, my arms (and eyes, and legs, and my whole being) are tired. As I got older, international – and even interstate flights began to feel more like violent crimes against my body, but I developed a system for arriving at an interesting place, somewhat refreshed after red-eye: don’t sleep well the night before.
It may seem like a good idea to start the trip rested, but in reality it is not, because sleeping on the plane is already quite difficult. Adjusting to a new time zone is always difficult, but the main thing is to make yourself as convincingly as possible to believe that you have been in that zone all this time. For example, when I flew to Denmark, I knew that I would be arriving late in the morning, so I would like to convey this feeling of late morning as best as possible. (Luckily, I always feel like shit in the morning, so it wasn’t hard.)
Feeling like I had slept a little during the “night” was key, but my flight from Oregon departed at about four o’clock in the afternoon, which is not my usual sleep time. To combat this, I deliberately deprived myself of sleep the night before – I had about three hours – so that I was ready to crash as soon as I got on the plane. I sat down in my seat, took a substance that promotes limited mobility (choose your favorite), then took a snack and listened to music until I passed out. I woke up in Europe, having slept for about seven hours, quite ready to take on the day. (I also saw Eddie Izzard during a stopover in Iceland, which helped cheer me up.)
Did I feel like I slept all night in my own bed? Obviously not, but I felt rested enough to stay awake until 11 p.m. Copenhagen time, after which I completely shattered and enjoyed a normal amount of sleep, which then allowed me to wake up at my usual time in the morning, mostly adapted to aggressive change. time. (I also do this when I fly from Portland to New York to work, simply because I can’t stay awake on the plane for six hours, so sleep caused by sleep deprivation works like a wormhole in a way.)