Jet lag is only a genuine issue on long-haul city breaks. European trips for UK travellers involve one or two hours of time difference at most, which is inconvenient in the way a bad night's sleep is inconvenient: not a medical event, just something to account for. Transatlantic arrivals in New York, Tokyo, or anywhere beyond a four-hour time shift require an actual strategy.

Morning Arrival Is Better

If you can choose your flight, choose the one that lands in the morning local time. Arriving at 7am in New York after a night flight is disorienting, but you have a full day of sunlight to anchor your body to local time. Arriving at 11pm means going to sleep on your old schedule, waking at 3am, and spending the next two days slightly out of phase.

A morning arrival gives you the chance to walk outside, eat breakfast at local time, and structure your first day around daylight. All of these things matter more than an extra hour of sleep on the plane.

The No-Nap First Day Rule

Do not nap on the first day. This is the rule that most people know and most people break. A 20-minute sit-down in the hotel room at 3pm becomes a two-hour sleep, which pushes your bed time to midnight, which means a 4am wake-up, which means day two is also compromised. Stay awake until at least 9pm local time on day one. Use the energy of arrival and novelty to your advantage. If you must rest, sit outside, not in a darkened room.

Melatonin

Melatonin taken at the local bedtime on day one is useful for people who respond to it. The dose matters: 0.5mg to 1mg is typically sufficient and produces fewer groggy side effects than the 5mg doses sold in American pharmacies. Take it at the time you want to sleep, not when you feel tired.

Melatonin is not licensed as a medicine in the UK but is available as a food supplement. It is freely available in the US and across most of Europe.

Structuring the First Day

One clear outdoor activity in daylight, lunch at a local café at local lunchtime, a second short walk in the afternoon, and dinner at the local dinner hour. This sounds regimented because it is. The structure is the point. Your body is looking for cues about what time it is, and you need to provide them: light, food, social timing.

Caffeine is useful until mid-afternoon local time and genuinely counterproductive after that. If you are arriving from east to west (London to New York, for example) the afternoon energy dip hits around 3-5pm local time, which corresponds to the middle of the night at home. A coffee at 2pm is fine. A coffee at 5pm will still be in your system at midnight.

European Breaks

Short-haul European city breaks from the UK do not involve meaningful jet lag. A one-hour time difference barely registers. The fatigue people report after returning from European city breaks is travel fatigue: early flights, disrupted sleep schedules, more walking than usual, and often more alcohol than usual. That is a different problem and the solution is the same as for any other holiday: sleep.