Jetlag Away

Jet lag is not tiredness. It is a timing problem. Your body clock keeps running on the time zone you left, and until it catches up, the local day and your internal day disagree — which is why you can sleep eight hours on the plane and still be wide awake at three in the morning.

Left alone, that clock moves about an hour a day when it has to move earlier, and about an hour and a half when it has to move later. A seven-hour shift is therefore the better part of a week, which is longer than many trips.

Jetlag Away turns one specific flight into one specific schedule. Enter where you are flying from and to, when you depart and when you land, and the hours you normally sleep. It works out which way your clock has to move and how far, and builds the days around it.

EVERY NIGHT HAS A BEDTIME

The plan is a schedule, not a list of tips. Each night before you fly, your sleep window moves a little in the direction you are travelling, so that some of the shift is already done by the time you board. The flight itself is covered — when to sleep, when to stay awake, when to seek light and when to avoid it — in the local time of each airport. Then it keeps going after you land, for as many days as your shift needs rather than a fixed number.

LIGHT, TIMED AGAINST YOUR BODY CLOCK

Light is the strongest signal your clock takes, and it is directional: the same bright hour moves your clock earlier or later depending on when it falls relative to your body's temperature minimum. Timed carelessly it can move you the wrong way, and nothing announces that it has. Jetlag Away estimates where that minimum sits on each day of your plan, and places both the bright-light windows and the ones to spend in sunglasses around it.

REMINDERS ON YOUR PHONE, AND NOWHERE ELSE

Sleep, wake, light, caffeine cutoff and naps each have their own switch. They are scheduled by your phone, locally. There is no push service, no device token registered with anyone, and no server of ours that knows when they fire or that they exist.

CHECK IN, AND THE PLAN RE-PACES

Tell it how you actually slept and how you feel. The remaining days adjust, instead of assuming you followed the plan exactly.

THREE INTENSITIES

Gentle, moderate and aggressive change how much the plan asks of you: how fast it shifts you, how much of the shift happens before departure, and how long the light windows are. Every one of those numbers is published, along with the research behind it, at jetlaga.com/how-jetlaga-builds-a-plan.

WHY EASTWARD IS HARDER

Flying east means moving your clock earlier, which is the direction it resists — a body clock that naturally runs slightly long finds staying up late easy and going to bed early hard. For a large enough eastward shift, Jetlag Away will deliberately plan the long way round and delay you instead. The reasoning is at jetlaga.com/eastward-vs-westward.

TRY IT FREE

A free 30-minute trial opens the whole app — no card, and no email address.

Jetlag Away is a scheduling tool. It is not a medical device, it does not diagnose anything, and it is not a substitute for advice from a doctor. Talk to a healthcare professional before following a plan if you have a sleep disorder or a circadian rhythm disorder, take medication affected by sleep timing or that affects sleep, are pregnant, have a heart condition or any condition affected by caffeine, or have an eye condition or any condition affected by bright light. Never follow a suggestion while driving, operating machinery, or doing anything else where being drowsy is dangerous.

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