Travel Hack: No jet-lag after fasting

A few days ago I flew from London to Auckland. That’s a very long flight and a large time difference. But this time I decided to try something that I’d read about quite a lot, which is resetting your body clock by fasting.

The theory goes that if you fast for 16 hours prior to breakfast (in the time zone that you’re going to) then your next meal helps to reset your body clock. So I avoided food on the DXB->SYD leg of my voyage and didn’t eat until it was morning New Zealand time. That meant I missed two meals on the plane, but they didn’t look anything special so it wasn’t a big deal.

I was kind of tired when I landed in New Zealand. But that’s to be expected after a big journey. Went to bed around 10pm and slept through until 8am. Same thing the next few nights too. No ‘wide awake at 4am’, no ‘so tired at 3pm’ weirdness. Unfortunately I did get a cold almost as soon as I landed, so have felt a little out of sorts otherwise, so it’s not a perfect test. I’d like to have seen how I felt without that to get a feel for how effective the fasting was, but as far as I can tell it’s a brilliant way to avoid jet-lag.

I’ll give it another go when I return to the UK next year and see how it goes then.