The jet lag planner turns your trip into a day-by-day schedule. From a few nights before departure through the flight and into your first mornings abroad, it tells you when to shift your sleep, when to seek and avoid light, and when to rest on the plane – all timed to move your body clock toward destination time as smoothly as possible.
How does the jet lag planner work?
It combines the same models the individual tools use into one timeline, so nothing is calculated twice or contradicts itself. For the nights before you fly, it nudges your sleep window toward the destination – earlier for an eastward trip, later for a westward one – by a realistic amount each night. For the flight, it drops in your best onboard sleep window from the flight sleep calculator. For your first days at the destination, it aligns sleep to local night and adds the seek/avoid light windows from the light exposure planner. The result is one plan you can follow day by day.
Which factors does it use?
| Effective shift and direction | Set how far and which way the plan moves your clock each day. |
|---|---|
| Body clock (CBTmin, biological night) | Anchor when light helps and when to sleep. |
| Pre-travel shift, capped | Pre-adjusts your sleep by up to about 3 hours – realistic, not a full head start. |
| Flight timing | Places your onboard rest against destination night. |
The pre-travel cap is deliberate: shifting your bedtime by more than a couple of hours before a trip is hard to sustain and disrupts normal life, so the planner aims for a helpful head start rather than a perfect one.
When should I start preparing before the flight?
For a big eastward or westward shift, starting two to three nights out gives the plan room to move your bedtime gradually. For a small shift, you may not need any pre-travel adjustment at all. The planner decides based on your effective shift and shows exactly which nights to change and by how much – so you are not guessing whether it is worth setting an earlier alarm. The size of your shift comes from the jet lag calculator.
What does a typical arrival day look like?
The plan puts you on local time immediately: sleep during the destination’s night, get bright light at the correct hour to keep advancing or delaying your clock, and avoid light when it would push you the wrong way. It discourages long daytime naps, which relieve tiredness but stall the reset by draining your clock-shifting momentum. Follow it for roughly a day per time zone and you should feel close to normal by the end – see how long does jet lag last.
Is one plan enough, or should I adjust as I go?
Use it as a strong default and adapt to reality. If a flight is delayed, if you sleep better or worse than expected, or if the weather blocks your morning light, shift the next day’s actions rather than abandoning the plan. The direction and the seek/avoid logic stay the same; only the exact hours move. Re-run the planner with your real times to refresh it.
Frequently asked questions
How far in advance should the plan start?
Usually two to three nights before departure for a large shift, capped so you never move your bedtime more than about three hours pre-trip. Small shifts may need no preparation.
Does the planner tell me to take melatonin?
No. It focuses on light and sleep timing, which are effective on their own. Melatonin is a personal medical decision – discuss dose and timing with a pharmacist or doctor, and never give it to children or use it in pregnancy without advice.
Is the schedule medically validated?
No. It is a transparent plan assembled from established chronobiology (light around your temperature minimum, ~1 day per zone). It is an orientation aid, not a clinical protocol.
Sources
- U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – CDC Yellow Book, “Jet Lag” chapter – pre-travel adjustment, timed light, and sleeping on destination time.
- Eastman CI & Burgess HJ (2009), Sleep Medicine Clinics – practical phase-advance and phase-delay schedules for travellers.
- NHS – “Jet lag” (nhs.uk/conditions/jet-lag/), last reviewed 31 May 2023.
- Sleep Foundation – “Jet Lag” educational overview.
The plan combines established scheduling principles into one timeline. The exact daily hours are jetlag.info’s transparent estimate from your trip – not a clinical prescription, and the pre-travel shift is deliberately capped at a realistic amount.