[ TIPS · THE DISPATCH ]

How to Beat Jet Lag on a Trip That's Only Three Days Long

Everyone tells you to adjust to local time. For a 72-hour trip, that's terrible advice. Here's the counterintuitive play I use for short hops that actually keeps me functional.

If you want to know how to avoid jet lag on a short trip, the first thing I’m going to do is tell you to ignore the advice everyone gives. Adjust to local time the moment you land? No. Not for three days. That’s how you spend the entire trip half-broken and adjusted to a clock you’re about to leave.

Let me explain. I do a lot of 72-hour work hops. Fly in, two days of meetings, fly out. And the worst thing you can do on a trip that short is try to drag your whole body onto a new schedule it’ll never settle into before you leave again.

So I don’t.

For anything under about four days, I stay mostly on home time. Mentally and, where I can, physically. If I’m flying New York to London — five hours ahead — I don’t pretend I’m a Londoner. I think of London as just running a bit weird. My body still thinks it’s home, and for three days, that’s fine. Better than fine.

The trick is then to schedule the things that actually matter for the hours when home-you is awake and sharp.

Say the big meeting is the whole reason for the trip. Home time it’s 10am — that’s 3pm in London. Perfect. You’re naturally alert at “your” 10am. Don’t book the critical pitch for 9am London, which is 4am to your brain. You’ll be a zombie reading slides you wrote yourself.

This is the part people miss. Jet lag isn’t really about sleep. Its about being asked to perform during your body’s dead hours. Dodge those hours and half the problem disappears.

Here’s the science part, kept short because nobody wants a lecture in an airport.

Your body clock takes its cues mostly from light hitting your eyes, not from what the clock on the wall says. Morning light shifts you earlier. Evening light shifts you later. That’s the lever.

• Flew east (say US to Europe — you “lost” hours): you need to wake up earlier, so chase morning light. Get outside in the first hour or two after a local sunrise. Walk to breakfast. Sit by a window.
• Flew west (Europe to US — you “gained” hours): you need to stay up later, so get evening light and avoid bright morning sun. Sunglasses in the early morning, oddly enough.

But — and this is the short-trip caveat — if you’ve decided to stay anchored to home time, you don’t go chasing local light aggressively. You use light gently, just to take the edge off, not to fully flip yourself. On a three-day trip the goal is “functional,” not “fully converted.”

A few things I’m strict about on the flight, because the flight sets up everything after.

Set your watch to the destination the second you board — but only to plan around, not to obey. I look at it and go, right, the meeting’s at “my 10am,” good. I’m not forcing myself to sleep on London’s schedule.

Skip the sleeping pill. I know, I know. But here’s my problem with them on short trips: they knock you out hard, you sleep through the descent feeling like a wet towel, and then the one decent night you get at the hotel is ruined because you’ve already had your big drugged sleep. If I’m going to sleep on the plane I let it happen naturally, eye mask, earplugs, and I accept whatever I get.

Hydrate, go easy on the wine. Cabin air is bone dry and alcohol makes the dehydration worse, which makes every jet-lag symptom worse. One glass with dinner, fine. Three and you’ve sabotaged yourself before landing.

Eat on destination meal times if you can. Food timing is a weaker clock-setter than light, but it’s a real one. If breakfast is being served and it’s “breakfast” where you’re headed, eat it.

Here’s roughly what a real one looks like for me, eastbound:

Day one — land morning, dump the bag, do NOT nap. Naps on arrival day are the devil. If I’m wrecked I take twenty minutes, alarm set, never more. Then I get outside, light lunch, easy afternoon, asleep by a reasonable local hour because I’ve been up forever.

Day two — the big day. Meetings scheduled for my sharp home-time hours. Coffee, yes, but cut it off by early afternoon local time so it doesn’t wreck the night.

Day three — fly home, and here’s the lovely bit: because I never fully left home time, I land back and I’m… basically fine. No second jet lag. The whole point.

The twenty-minute power nap, deployed surgically. Not a two-hour collapse — that’s a different beast, you wake up groggier than before and it eats your night. But a tight, alarmed, twenty-minute one in the early afternoon if I’m sinking? Total reset. I’ve taken them on a bench in Hyde Park more than once and felt human again after.

Short trips reward the lazy approach, honestly. Don’t fight your body to convert it for a stay that’s barely longer than the flight there. Anchor home, schedule smart, use light gently, and protect your sleep.

Stop trying to become a local in three days. Stay yourself, book the meetings for when your brain’s actually online, and you’ll fly home wondering what all the fuss was about.

This article contains affiliate links marked rel="sponsored". We may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.