Surviving the 13 hour flight

We arrived Tokyo Haneda after a 13-hr flight with a 13-hour time difference feeling relatively good! For those of you with long-haul flights in the future, here are some of the things that worked for me, mainly at the recommendation of my veteran-traveling friends Stefanie and Brian Hutchins:
1) Basic Concept foot sling (helped get comfy in a way that put less strain on the back)
2) Sarisun “travel pillow”. I put this in quotes because it is not really a pillow at all, but a combo neck stabilizer/eye mask. It was super comfy and I didn’t stress about flopping over and drooling on the guy next to me. And no neck cricks!
3) Timeshifter app: this app puts your specific travel into the app and gives you light exposure, caffeine intake, and sleep suggestions to help reduce jet lag. It was hard/impractical to do precisely, but I do feel that it helped! We’ll see if I wake up at 2am, but so far, so good!
4) Related to above, reset my watch to Japan time as soon as I buckled in. Consumed coffee on the new time schedule.
5) No alcohol- sacrilege, right? It was even free! Argh.
6) ANA was amazing- served dinner quickly, then they turned out the lights. This allowed me to …
7) … Take Tylenol PM early (on the new time zone). This has always been my magical elixar for red-eyes.
8) Stood up and/or stretched every hour or so.Read more