Jet lag: How to beat it

My recent bout with jet lag led me to do some research. Here's a list of tips and tricks on how to ward off jet lag:

• According to Dr. Russel Reiter, a nutrition researcher and one of the world’s authorities on melatonin, cherries might help fight jet lag. "Tart cherries contain melatonin, which is then absorbed into the blood stream influencing your biological clock," he said. According to Dr. Reiter, when flying east (say from New York to London) travelers should eat a handful of dried cherries (which have even greater levels of melatonin than fresh cherries) 30 minutes before trying to sleep. Once at their destination, they should eat a handful of cherries 30 minutes before going to bed every night for the same number of nights as the time change. (For a five-hour time shift, eat cherries for five consecutive nights.) When heading west, do the same regime, only eat your cherries the night before departure. —The New York Times

• Catching sunlight once you arrive in another time zone can be more effective than drugs in helping to reset the body's clock, Dr. Moore-Ede said, adding, "The best thing you can do is get outdoors." —The New York Times

• Mark R. Rosekind, a sleep expert and a founder of Alertness Solutions, a consulting firm in Cupertino, Calif., underscores the need to get as much sleep as you can before and during travel. Get plenty of rest before the trip, he said, to avoid starting out with a “sleep debt” that compounds over the length of your stay. After arrival, take care to get enough sleep and ensure that your sleep will be uninterrupted — by staying in hotels, for example, that provide a quiet setting and heavy curtains to keep light out. And, he said, avoid drinking alcohol close to bedtime because it disrupts sleep patterns. —The New York Times

• If you are prone to jet lag, begin a defense in advance of your trip. As soon as you get on the plane, change your watch to your new time zone and try to adjust your eating and sleeping schedule to that time. Even better, shift your eating, sleeping and exercise patterns to your new time zone a few days before your departure. After landing, stick to your new schedule, especially avoiding daytime sleep. —Dr. Nayer Khazeni, Stanford University Medical Center, The San Francisco Chronicle

• Try to schedule flights so that they arrive mid/late afternoon, wherever in the world I’m flying to. This allows for a convenient amount of time to get to the hotel, and then a good night's sleep to follow. —USA Today

• The worst thing to do upon arriving somewhere, early in the day, is to give in and have ‘a short nap’. Not only does the short nap usually become a longer sleep (!), but you’re making it more difficult for your body to get a handle on what time zone it now is in – your strategy is to start living the new time zone as soon as possible. —USA Today