A few years ago I had a trip to London planned. I would be landing at Heathrow at 9 a.m. on a Sunday morning and needed to be sharp as a tack and as beautiful as possible by 9 a.m. on Monday morning. How could I accomplish this?
Well, the first step is admitting you have a problem. So, I ran to my nearest Whole Foods and told them of my plight. The woman didn’t skip a beat, and lead me to the miracle cure: "We can barely keep this stuff on the shelves, and have many, many repeat customers. Everyone raves."
The cure is succinctly named "No Jet Lag." It lives up to its creative title. It is a homeopathic remedy that takes care of all those odd little aches and pains you get while scrunched up for hours, takes the edge off the jittery feelings you get when you don’t get enough sleep, and generally makes the transition far smoother in every way.
I even use it on shorter trips where the time change is just two or three hours. I find it helps battle all the little odd symptoms I tend to get when I fly, let alone change time zones.
The second Lazy Woman tool in my travel bag: water. I drink a lot of water — three or four liters when traveling from Los Angeles to Europe, for instance. This means booking aisle seats is crucial. Your skin will thank you as well. And, I highly recommend not drinking alcohol because it dehydrates you. Everything about travel is dehydrating, which zaps you of energy and makes you look horrible to boot.
My third anti-jet lag cure is one I learned of on my recent flight to London. I sat next to a woman from Ireland who lives and works in New York, but flies regularly back to the U.K. She told me to stop at a Boots store, the famous drugstore chain, and pick up a bottle of Berocca tablets. She said she takes it when she wakes up in her new time zone, and every morning thereafter that she needs a little "kick." Then she winked and said, "And it works great for hangovers too."
She didn’t know that even though my name is Bridget and I carry Irish blood in these veins, I fall asleep before I can ever earn a hangover. But, travel I do, so I literally got some after I landed and used it the entire trip. It was fantastic! They don’t sell it in the U.S. but you can buy it online. It’s just a bunch of vitamins, but I think the key is what my new Irish friend noted: lots of B12 and other B vitamins.
This trip to London and Paris was physically and mentally exhausting with both work and pleasure. Yet, I was able to do it all because I did these three things.
Happy energized Lazy Trails to you and yours!
