How to deal with Long Flight or Time Change?

My dad and I are moving to Tokyo, our flight leaves Houston Oct 28 7:50am we have and 2hr lay over at LAX and are due to arrive Oct 29 3:05p in Tokyo. This last summer I went with my grandparents and the flight or time change really messed me up. Is it the actual Flight or the flip flop of days and nights that gets to you? What is the best way or is there anything that helps to prepare and deal with it?

The changed air pressure, noise and limited space in an airplane is what gets to me in addition to the time change. But I find the time change usually only bad if I arrive in the new location in the morning and have to fight through an entire day. I find it much easier to arrive in the evening and be able to go to bed soon after.

Flying business class makes a lot of the things easier :)

Aside from that, I recommend to start your travel day well rested. It gets me through the travel day much easier than when I am tired to begin with. And if I can manage it, I try to sleep a few hours during the flight, although I really dislike sleeping while sitting (another point where business class offers a distinct advantage).

But different people have different strategies...

A couple of tips.

When you take off from LAX change the time on your watch to match the current time in Tokyo. This will help you to start thinking in Tokyo time.

After you arrive in Tokyo and get to your destination (hotel or wherever you are staying) try to stay awake as late as possible. Don't immediately go to sleep because after a normal sleep cycle you're body will try to wake up. This means that if you go to sleep at 5 or 6 pm, you'll be awake at 2 am. Then you won't get back to sleep and will just be tired the next day. If you can stay awake until 10 pm, you'll wake up in the morning with the sun shining and your mind and body will be better adjusted (and since you already changed the time on your watch on the plane you'll already be thinking in Tokyo time).

Itinerary says flying coach from IAH to LAX on a 757-200 3.5hr flight, then first class from LAX to NRT on a 777-300 13hr. I don't know what the difference between first and business is (if any), but I flew business last time, it was nice and I slept most of the flight. I was told to start altering my sleep schedule now and stay awake for most of the second flight especially the last 8 or 10 hours. It that going to help?

The difference between flying business and coach on a 13 hour flight is like the difference between champagne and 7-Up.

Even if you are a relatively small person, it can be a painful experience on a crowded flight. If you are stuck in some middle seat, just give into the fact that you have to suffer for the next 24 hours and put the misery out of your mind.

I think you should try to sleep as much as possible on your flight. Sleeping the time away takes away from the stress, which can help reduce post-flight fatigue and jet lag.

No matter what time you get in try your best to stay active and awake throughout the day. Forcing yourself into the new daylight schedule will help your sleep patterns and prevent prolonged jet lag.

A great number of physiological process are regulated in your body by clock genes. This internal clock can only shift a few hours per day. So when you change timezones rapidly, your body will take time to adjust. And for a few days things won't be right - e.g liver metabolising fats at the wrong time of day and hormones produced at the "wrong" time. Going straight to the new schedule helps - use melatonin or similar to help you sleep with the right hormone signals.

The way that your clock genes are regulated is partly through light - there is a third type of photoreceptor that detects this, even through closed eyelids! Light therapy has been shown to be highly effective at speeding up time shifts. So avoiding or seeking bright light at certain times of your circadian rhythms can really help. There is an online calculator here http://www.bodyclock.com/

Diet can also help. So switch to eating your normal meals at your normal meal times, but using you destination time. There was a study that suggested fasting greatly speeded up jet lag recovery - but I've certainly never tried this.

Personally, I don't bother trying to switch when I travel long haul for short work trips - I instead adopt a pattern of having sleeping twice a day for 3-5 hours. But for long trips, it is best to try to change as soon as you can. Good luck!

At one stage a few years back, I travelled between Australia and Europe 9 times in less than two years.
The total time from leaving to arriving at the hotel was around 27-29 hours. I adopted a certain way of dealing with jetlag.

I always arrived early morning. Sometimes i would go into work(!) until I got too tired around 3pm, and then I would go back to the hotel. I would then go for a two hour walk, eat dinner, go for another walk, and end up going to bed at about 11pm or midnight.
I would then be tired enough to sleep for 6-7 hours, and I would then be in the new time zone, with just a little residual tiredness.

If you have ANY naps during that fist day, you delay the whole time zone adjustment by a whole day.