Sleep, perchance to dream, or accidentally loll your head on a stranger's shoulder, is a tricky business in the air. Photo: Annie Williams / Unsplash
It’s rare for a long-haul flight to feel like a relaxing journey, but it’s even worse if you can’t get any sleep. The trick, says sleep expert Leigh Signal, is to adopt a realistic approach and maximise the sleep you do get.
Signal, professor in fatigue management and sleep health at Massey University, told Nights that expecting to get a solid eight hours’ shut eye on a long-haul flight is an unrealistic starting point.
“If you think about the last time you had a great night's sleep, it was probably at home in your comfy bed and it was cool and dark and quiet, and you were certainly lying horizontal. It’s very unlikely that you were sitting upright squashed between two other people with the lights on and people moving around you.”
Part of the problem is that humans aren’t designed to fall asleep in an upright position, Signal says. Relaxation, especially of the neck muscles that hold the head up, is part of the falling asleep process and that’s hard to achieve when seated.
“We’ve probably all experienced this in the past, when you've fallen asleep sitting upright somewhere maybe in a car… and you have that head-dropping feeling and you suddenly wake up again.
“Try a neck pillow or something else to keep your head propped up. Or, if you're lucky enough to have a window seat, lean against the wall. Unless you know the person sitting next to you very well, perhaps they're not someone you should be thinking of leaning against to help keep you a little more upright throughout the flight.”
Long haul flights mess with the body’s “amazing” circadian timekeeping system that programmes us to be awake during the day and asleep at night, Signal says.
The resulting struggle for our bodies to adjust to a new time zone puts all its systems out of whack.
Dr Leigh Signal Photo: supplied
“Jetlag is this mismatch between our circadian biological timekeeping system and the time zone that we're in.”
Add the lack of sleep during the journey, and it’s not surprising that people feel so terrible after a long-haul flight, Signal says. There’s no fast fix, but getting outside and spending time in daylight in the new location (and sleeping and eating at the normal times for that time zone) will help.
“It's not an instantaneous thing that happens. As a very rough rule of thumb, but we take about an hour a day for every hour that we've shifted, but our clock actually really adjusts very rapidly initially, and then takes a bit longer to make the remainder of the adjustment.”
She says flying west is slightly easier because it requires our body clocks to stretch out slightly. When flying east, they must compress.
Even a relatively short flight, such as from New Zealand to Australia, can be enough to make people feel jet-lagged, Signal says.
“It could be a little harder when you have to come home back to New Zealand when you're traveling east again. But even a time zone adjustment of as little as two hours can be noticeable for some people more than others because we're all a little different and how our clocks behave.”
How to sleep better on long-haul flights
- Nighttime is the right time: “A lot of long-haul flights are actually during our biological nights, so they'll depart New Zealand in the evening and travel throughout the night. Timing-wise it's going to be easier for us to get some sleep because it's timed with our circadian time for sleep.”
- Aim for the nap window on day flights: “If you're flying during your biological day, then I suggest that you try and sleep in your natural afternoon nap window. We all have a time in the afternoon where we can feel a little sleepier, so try for that.”
- Say no to coffee: “Even if you can fall asleep after drinking coffee or caffeine, it does make your sleep lighter and more fragmented. So, in an environment that's a little tricky to sleep, we don't really want to make it easier to wake ourselves than we need to.”
- Alcohol is not your flying friend either: “Alcohol does help us fall asleep and it can make us feel sleepy. But it also disturbs our sleep and if we've got a reasonable amount of alcohol on board, it stops our brains producing rapid eye movement or REM sleep, which is when we normally experience our dreams. Once you've metabolised the alcohol, your brain plays catch up, and that sleep then can be quite disturbed and disrupted.”
- Any amount of sleep is better than nothing: “Even if that sleep isn't of great quality, it still puts you in a much better position when you get to your new location.”
- Get the right accessories: Investing in an eye pillow, as well as eyeshades and earplugs to block light and noise, will help you rest, Signal says. Wearing comfortable clothes is also a good idea.
- Screentime is ok if you can't snooze: “If you do wake up and you struggle to sleep, it's the one time a sleep scientist is going to tell you to turn on the technology and watch some in-flight entertainment until you feel sleepy again. And then then try and have another short nap.”
- Melatonin isn’t for beginners: “Melatonin is much more widely available now but should always be obtained from your GP or health professional. It's a hormone that our body produces naturally, that tells our circadian timing system when it's night-time and it can help some people fall asleep, but it also has a role in adjusting the timing of your circadian timekeeping system. So, if you take it at the wrong time, you could perhaps send yourself further away from your destination time zone rather than closer to it.”
- Seek expert advice before popping a sleeping pill: “Some of them don't give you the normal structure of sleep and some of them can also make you feel quite groggy or disorientated on waking. It’s really important that you only take sleeping medications that have been prescribed for you, and chat to your health practitioner about it before you do so.”
