If there’s one great equalizer when it comes to travel, it’s that everyone deals with jet lag—yes, even celebrities. Whether it’s filming on location or traveling around the globe on press tours, time zone-hopping is built into our favorite stars’ job descriptions. So for the last few months, we’ve been asking celebrities how they deal with the struggle to adjust their internal body clocks.
Some are planners who start their process before even stepping foot on a plane, while others simply play mind games with themselves to acclimate to the new time, and still others have figured out some pretty creative hacks that work for them. But if there’s one thing that’s for sure, it’s that when it comes to jet lag, celebrities are just like us.
Plan Ahead
Since his first trip to Europe without his parents in 1973, travel guru Rick Steves has become an expert in crossing multiple time zones. But with more than five decades under his belt, he told Travel + Leisure, “You don’t get over it with experience,” admitting he still faces the struggle three times a year on his European trips.
So he’s all about getting ahead of the problem. “Give yourself a false departure date 48 hours before your actual one so that all that frantic before-the-trip stuff is done and you leave home well-rested,” he said, emphasizing that “leaving home healthy” is the key. He also tries to ensure he sleeps on the plane with a sleeping pill, suggesting fellow travelers who are comfortable with melatonin and the like do so as well (with doctor approval, of course).
Patrick Schwarzenegger echoes that sentiment, having to battle the issue when he flew to Thailand to film White Lotus. “I’m super crazy about jet lag,” he said, admitting it’s been harder to deal with as he’s gotten older. “I usually start trying to go on to the time zone the day before—I won’t go fully on to it, but I would try starting to adapt to it the day of the flight.”
The Summer I Turned Pretty star Gavin Casalengo—who spent the last year jet-setting from Europe to Asia—pulled back and looked at the bigger picture: “It’s not really a hack, just life advice, but I always prepare the day before.”
Mind Over Matter
Some celebrities believe that catching a few extra z’s can help—and that includes I Love L.A. star Josh Hutcherson. “Take a nap as soon as you get to wherever you’re going. I don’t care where you’re flying,” he said. But others, like Today cohost Al Roker and actress Brenda Song, believe that it’s better not to give in to the sluggish feeling. “I gut it out, and that’s it,” Roker said.
But no matter what, it’s all about putting mind over matter. “I just tell myself there is no jet lag,” Song said. “Whatever city that I’m in, I just go with the day. Even if I haven’t slept, and I land at 9 a.m., I go about my day as if it’s 9 a.m.”
Workaholics star Adam DeVine agrees that it’s about “telling yourself that you don’t have jet lag and just powering through” and focusing on the excitement of exploring the new destination. Hoda Kotb put it best: it’s playing head games. “Don’t spend all day thinking about it—the more you talk about it, the worse it is,” she said, noting its similarity to “nights at home where your kid was up all night.”
Comedian John Mulaney keeps it simple, as he suggested, “Never adapt to any time zone. Stay in the time zone you’re used to,” while pop superstar Sabrina Carpenter’s jet lag hack is unsurprisingly, “Pretending I’m not jet lagged. And espresso.”
Get Outside
There’s nothing like a breath of fresh air, and that’s so essential when it comes to adjusting to a different time zone.
In fact, that’s Tennis Hall of Famer Maria Sharapova’s little secret. “When I get to a city, I just love to take a run or walk,” she told T+L. “If I can do it barefoot on the grass, that’s helpful.” It’s a trick she used as part of recovery when she was on the pro circuit. Even so, she admitted that “jet lag is still a tricky one to beat,” no matter who you are.
Reese Witherspoon has developed her own formula that starts with drinking two bottles of water with vitamin C and electrolytes, and then setting her watch to the new time as soon as she can. But the key: “I try to walk outside. Getting fresh air and sunlight really helps.”
Steves agrees: “Jet lag hates bright light, fresh air, and exercise. Get out there and pound the pavement. Have a good time. Get out and do things.”
Drink Water
Witherspoon isn’t the only one who focuses on hydration. Kotb, Roker, and Casalengo all emphasized the importance of drinking water while fighting jet lag.
In fact, it’s something that magician David Blaine started doing after talking to pilots about their tips and tricks. “It’s always hydration and proper diet leading into the flight, low salt so you don’t swell up and mess with your system too much,” he said.
Creative Solutions
With all the travel that they do, celebrities have a chance to road test various solutions, and some have come up with their own personalized tricks.
For Drew Barrymore, it’s all about timing the right flights. “One of my favorite things to do is to try to travel late at night, so that I arrive early in the morning and then force myself awake all day, and then I’m tired by that night,” she said. “I hate a morning flight. I’m like, ‘Oh, this is the worst.’ Fly during the middle of the night and then force yourself awake all day, and you’ll acclimate much quicker that way.”
Benedict Cumberbatch marveled that friends of his visiting him in the UK from Los Angeles turned to an app to help them adjust. “They said it really works,” he said. “It’s quite rigorous. It’s very much about when you eat and when you drink and when you sleep. And they said, within 24 hours, they really sorted themselves out.”
But seasoned travel expert Samantha Brown just might have one of the simplest tips. First of all, she’ll stop drinking coffee three days before the trip, so that when she’s in the new destination, she’ll “wait until 3 p.m. when I’m about to die and then take a double shot of espresso—that takes me through the rest of the day.”
Then she also does what she has dubbed “frugal first class.” With two kids, her family of four always flies economy to Europe, so they choose a red-eye and book a hotel for the night before. That means when they arrive around 7 a.m., not only do they have a place to settle in and freshen up with a hot shower—or even take a quick power nap—but they also have a hotel breakfast waiting for them.
“We just sit for a bit in our own space, and then by noon, we’re out the door and enjoying the city,” she explained, with the caveat you do need to let the hotel know the night before so they don’t cancel the room as a no-show. “It really helps when you know you can’t afford first class, especially for four tickets, so a hotel is a lot cheaper.”
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