Welcome to my world

A question that was asked recently at a symposium about the physical and mental effects of constantly flying round the world, was, “What is the optimal time to fly to maximise your mental performance”.

Of course there is a good time to fly and a bad time. This is why forward planning is so essential before anyone flies anywhere, far more so if you plan to fly for more that a few hours. It is also important if only a short flight of a few hours is to be undertaken. It is far better to leave in daylight, and to arrive in daylight at the destination. This helps to keep all those body clocks in sync, and makes the experience more enjoyable.

This ideal situation is of course totally blown off course by all of us wanting cheaper flights, whether privately or on Company business. This cheaper requirement results in some very unusual times of departure and arrival. It is often worse on a return journey, say after a pleasant holiday as the plane you fly home in is the same plane as you flew out on returning for example to the UK, The least expensive is usually the last in and the first out, or last in and first out.

Getting up in the middle of the night to get to the airport is never a good experience for either long or short haul. You are tired before you even start your journey. Where ever you are going these days you have to add in another 2 hours for check in and security. You then have to be herded into your seat, add 8-10 hrs for the flight itself, with a possible stop for a connecting flight.

The consequence is that you are going to arrive very tired, unless you planned your journey much better from the start. Even with bad departure and arrival times, there is a lot you can do to make sure you arrive not so tired, in a better state of mind, and with better mental performance. Many people in high places think they can perform at their best when they arrive after a long flight. Many of those people have discovered that they have made mistakes by not taking simple advice. You cannot beat the system but you can get things into more of a balance, so that the system will not work against you.

Is the answer a pill, no it is not. It is about some self discipline and sensible sleeping and dozing. If you add on balanced eating, drinking and taking some replacement minerals, vitamins and necessary supplements you will feel better. These replacements are necessary as they will have been used up on the journey anyway, and their depletion is a major contribution to the cause of travel fatigue. You can get this fatigue on long distance rail, ship even long car journeys. If you interrupt your normal sleep/eat/rest and play pattern, and you deplete your body stores without replacing what you have used up, your body does not like it. Common sense really, but nearly all of everyone who travels anywhere upset their systems by forgetting or ignoring what normally goes on inside them. Mental performance is the first casualty of these changes.

If you have got this far, and you are not too bored, Some solutions will appear in the next post. DrP.