Beat the jet lag
Jet lag isn't tiredness — it's your body clock stuck on the time zone you left. The fix isn't sleep. It's light, timed correctly.
Tell it where you're flying. It'll tell you which way your clock has to move, how long it'll take, and what to do each day to get there faster.
Free · No sign-up · Routes in, a day-by-day plan out
Your route decides everything
Which direction your clock has to shift, and how many days it'll take to catch up.
Pick a route to see what your body's up against.
Your clock runs a little long
Left alone in the dark, your body clock drifts to roughly a 24.2-hour day. It would rather run late than run early — so stretching your day, going to bed later, is natural, and compressing it, going to bed earlier, is a fight.
Flying west asks you to delay: stay up later, sleep in later. Your clock is happy to oblige. Flying east asks you to advance: sleep earlier, wake earlier, before your body is ready. That's the uphill direction, and it's why the same number of zones hits so much harder going one way than the other.
This is also why "just push through and sleep when it's dark" doesn't work on its own. Sleep follows the clock; it doesn't reset it. To actually move the clock, you have to send it the one signal it can't ignore.
Light is the only thing that resets the clock
Bright light is the master switch for your body clock, far stronger than willpower, food, or any supplement. The catch is that when you get it determines which way your clock moves. Light in the morning pulls your clock earlier; light in the evening pushes it later. The same sunshine helps or hurts depending on the hour you step into it.
So the strategy flips with direction. Flying east, you want to advance: chase morning light and keep your evenings dim. Flying west, you want to delay: get light in the late afternoon and evening, and go easy on bright morning light for the first day or two (sunglasses on an early arrival are a real tactic, not a fashion statement).
| Flying east (advance) | Flying west (delay) | |
|---|---|---|
| Your clock needs to | Move earlier | Move later |
| Seek light | Morning, on arrival | Late afternoon / evening |
| Avoid light | Late evening | Early morning |
| Pre-trip shift | Bed earlier each night | Bed later each night |
| Pace | ≈ 1 day per zone | ≈ 1 day per 1.5 zones |
Two more levers worth using. Caffeine is a tool, not a crutch — a coffee in the destination morning helps you hold the line, but cut it off early or it follows you into the night. And alcohol does the opposite of what people hope on a long flight: it knocks you out, then fragments the little sleep you'll get, so skip it in the air.
Turn the route into a day-by-day plan
Add a few details and it'll tell you when to sleep on the plane, whether to nap or push through on landing, and how to use light each day.
Five things that do most of the work
- Set your watch to destination time the moment you board, and start living on it.
- Sleep on the plane only if it's nighttime where you're going. If it's daytime there, stay awake.
- On arrival, chase or avoid light by direction — morning light flying east, evening light flying west.
- Land in daylight? Push through to local bedtime. One short nap under 20 minutes is allowed; a long one resets the clock you're trying to move.
- Use caffeine in the local morning and cut it off early; skip alcohol in the air entirely.
When the schedule's a mess, the nights you do get should count
Travel breaks your routine no matter how well you plan it, which makes the recovery you get on the nights around a trip matter more, not less. Moongreens is a melatonin-free night drink built to support that recovery rather than knock you out, so a disrupted week costs you less.
It leans on named clinical forms rather than a sedative hit, and on 5-HTP to support your own melatonin pathway rather than dosing the hormone itself. Made in the USA.
90 nights, money-back. Thirty nights isn't long enough to judge a recovery formula, so you get three months to feel the difference in how you wake up.
This calculator is for general planning and isn't medical advice. Timings are approximate and vary by person, season, and route. If you have a health condition or take medication, talk to your doctor before changing your sleep or light routine. These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.