I recently got back from a trip to Japan. It was a dream trip, my second bucket list holiday after I did South Korea a few years ago. One lesson I took away from that first trip to Seoul is that jet lag is no joke. It took me three days to get back to normal, which many who have suffered from jet lag disorder will admit is pretty good. When I was planning for Japan, I knew tech could help with a few things. Along with Wanderlog for planning my days, I found Timeshifter which promised to overcome jet lag. Here’s how it went.
What Does Jet Lag Actually Mean?
Jet lag is a temporary sleep disorder that occurs when a person’s internal biological clock, or circadian rhythm, is out of sync with the local time at their travel destination. Regular readers will know I’m fascinated by circadian rhythms and I have lights in my house to manage my rhythms as much as possible. These rhythms are effectively related to jet lag. It’s ultimately the desynchronisation of your body from your current timezone to the one you’ve moved to.
This misalignment results from rapid long-distance travel across multiple time zones, causing the body’s natural sleep-wake cycle to become disrupted.
Symptoms of Jet Lag
The impact on you will vary based on quite a few variables but there are some general things to look out for. Jet lag can significantly impact both physical and mental well-being, reducing productivity, impairing cognitive function, and decreasing physical performance. Travellers often experience a range of symptoms, including persistent fatigue, daytime drowsiness, and insomnia. As you can imagine, this is not a fun experience to have on the dream holiday of a lifetime.
Additional stress if travelling with others can bring on exponential unpleasantness as those affected by jet lad could experience mood swings, irritability, and increased stress levels along with physical discomforts such as headaches and dizziness.
So it’s best we do what we can to avoid jet lag, right?
How to Avoid Jet Lag
There are a few things you can do to avoid jet lag. My main piece of advice is “do what your told”. That from both the Timeshifter app that I’ll talk about further below, but also take the cues from your long haul airline too.
What Airlines Do to Help With Jet Lag
I flew to Tokyo via Amsterdam. This is already very good for managing jet lag because the vast majority of my flight was in my second leg. That meant it was one airline managing my jetlag. If I was stopping half way, it would be harder for them to know which passengers were on which sleep cycles. So for this reason, KLM were largely in control of my sleep patterns coming into Tokyo.
The plane has modern lighting systems that simulate natural light patterns, aiding in those all-important circadian rhythm adjustments. The timing of the flight itself was planned to align with natural sleep cycles. So too were the timing of food and coffee service with the offering largely “coming to us in the galley” instead of “us coming to you”. This allows the airline to serve the needs of individuals adjusting to patterns individually.
If you choose to avoid all of these prompts, you’re going to have a bad time with jet lag when you land. What I found amazing was the fact I was using an app to help with jet lag and the app was pretty closely aligned to what the crew was recommending too.
Timeshifter: The Jet Lag App
Timeshifter is your personal jet lag avoidance assistant for long-haul travel. Your first trip is free and after that you can pay by the trip or pay annually. I’ll include pricing further below.
Timeshifter was a system originally developed by NASA’s consultant on circadian rhythms, Dr. Smith L. Johnston and NASA’s own flight doctor, Dr. Steven W. Lockley for astronauts to manage their day-night cycles while in orbit or abroad the International Space Staton. Even back on earth, ground control utilises similar methods to ensure they can maintain peak mental performance around the clock.
Realising this system was also extremely helpful for long-haul travellers, the pair launched Timeshifter for consumers.
How Does Timeshifter Work?
Remember how I said my one piece of advice is to look for the cues and do what you’re told when travelling? That applies tenfold for Timeshifter. If you want to give the app a try, you have to be prepared to do what it tells you and make sure push notifications are turned on.
Starting out, I put my flight numbers into the app. It’s important to note that you should put in your outbound and return flights for Timeshifter to effectively give you the best experience. This one simple step of providing your flight numbers makes setting up really easy as the app does all the work from here. Now Timeshifter can work out your travel plans and give you the outline of your schedule.
The schedule Timeshifter gives you focuses on three main things:
- Circadian rhythms (exposure to light)
- Caffeine consumption (coffee etc)
- Sleep
The plan kicks in a few days before you travel and you should start following that plan as soon as it starts. The app will tell you when you either get or avoid daylight, stop consuming caffeine and when you should hit the hay.
One thing I nearly forgot for mine was that a lot of cola drinks contain caffeine, including zero-sugar drinks – so watch out for that.
Your Timeshifter plan will start before you travel, give you tips during your flight and continue a few days into your trip too. I’ll admit I wasn’t as strict with my plan when I landed because I felt great and I was on holiday. But the idea here is that the app continues to optimise your sleep schedules a few days into your trip to make sure you feel great.
As I mentioned earlier, I was impressed with how in sync the plane’s lighting system was with the recommendations in my app with just a few minutes between them. This was likely somewhat lucky too given the amount of different cycles on board the plane.
Does Timeshifter Work?
My personal experience with Timeshifter was incredibly positive. Of course, I can’t say that alone worked given I spotted so much jet lag management on my plane too. But I was horribly jet lagged when I flew to Seoul with British Airways from London, but landed in Tokyo ready for a holiday and hit the ground running.
British Airways did time the flight perfectly and very similarly to my KLM flight to Tokyo, but they didn’t have as much circadian management.
All in all, this means it’s tough for me to say Timeshifter alone works, but taking some steps to manage your exposure to jet lag absolutely can. And if your airline does nothing for jet lag, it’s even more important you have an app like Timeshifter to avoid it.
The Goosed Verdict: Timeshifter – Is It Worth It?
I hate paying for apps in general, but Timeshifter is fairly priced for all customers. If you are a business traveller flying long haul on a regular basis, the annual plan of €25 is great value, even more so if you’re thinking about the time it saves you. If you’re doing one big long-haul trip per year, you can buy a single plan for €10.
If you look at that €10 as expensive for an app, like I typically would, you need to reframe that focus. This is €10 to make sure you don’t waste a day or more of the holiday of a lifetime. That holiday probably close a small fortune, so that €10 is a great investment. If you’re a couple you can even use the one plan together.
I am unlikely to ever fly long-haul again without plugging my itinerary into Timeshifter because I know what jet lag feels like and life’s just too short! The Timeshifter app is available for Android and iOS.
