HEALTH & WELLNESS / 12th April 2024
How to Beat Jet Lag with Natalie Pennicotte-Collier
What are your travel plans this festive season? In celebration of our partnership with The Standard Hotel, we sat down with sleep specialist, Natalie Pennicotte-Collier, to help you travel across time zones without the accompanying jet lag.
The woman dubbed ‘The Insomnia Expert’ by The Sunday Times
Natalie is a clinical therapist and consultant sleep expert peddling her mantra, “a good night's sleep starts each morning.” Her book, Sleep Reset, draws on her experience researching the nervous system, working with NHS GPs and collaborating with Royal Warrant Hypnos Beds. As a longtime Morning & Night user, Natalie believes that our award-winning supplement’s biggest advantage is its ability to address circadian disruption, which she calls “the number one wellness stressor.”
Join us as we sit down with Natalie to understand more on circadian disruption, sleep hygiene and how to prevent jet lag when travelling, no matter how far you plan to go…
Can you share your best advice on how to get restful sleep in a hotel room?
As a global sleep expert, passionate about performance wellbeing, my work requires me to travel regularly, all juggling motherhood and my relationship with my partner. This is true for so many of us as we attempt to meet demands with our work, relationships, personal well-being and caring for others.
The circadian rhythm frames how you can sleep well and thrive, even when we don’t have a perfect familiar bed or sleep schedule. As is the case with the Olympic athletes I support, your sleep cannot always rely on the same conditions or perfect quiet sleep space. In fact, our innate sleep physiology naturally adapts to new environments, as part of our evolution as a species. That said, you may be familiar with the well-known evolutionary concept of the first-night effect – when we’re in a new environment, our bodies and minds are on ‘high alert’. Even if our hotel room is perfectly comfortable, our minds will stay alert to changes in smell and sound.
But the great news is, our body adapts to 3 helpful sensory cues, no matter where we are sleeping, and we can support our sleep by unpacking these three elements: Darkness, Temperature Control and Relaxation.
With these 3 sleep cues in mind, your ‘perfect sleep space’ can be created no matter where you are:
- Travel with an eye mask to block out light.
- Set your room to a temperature that’s comfortable for you.
- Create your ideal 30-min winddown routine and replicate it wherever you are.
How can we get adequate sleep and prevent the dreaded jet lag as we travel across time zones? Is it even possible?
Travel Jet Lag is simply a mismatch between our environment and our inner body clock. In fact, to some extent, many people do this every weekend, without travelling anywhere (this phenomenon is known as social jetlag). A common habit that we might think is harmless, like weekend lie-ins, can cause huge inner effects on sleep well-being and confusion for the body and mind. The key to beating jet lag lies in your circadian cues – supporting ‘awake mode’ and ‘sleep mode’ as much as you can.
Support Awake Mode
LIGHT
Go outside or let bright daylight inside to kickstart your circadian rhythm and adjust to a new time zone.
FUEL
Gentle movement at the start of your day, nutrient-rich food & high quality supplementation.
TOOLS
A cold shower is a great way to activate awake mode.
Support Sleep Mode
LIGHT
Dim the light & create a dark, safe, cosy sleep space. Reduce digital blue light at least 90 minutes before bed.
FUEL
Reduce heavy food, use sleep support supplementation & hydrate! Choose gentle movement over HIIT or cardio.
TOOLS
Soak in a warm bath or shower to aid relaxation.
“From the moment that most people wake up in the western world, they are confusing their body clocks – hitting snooze, waking up at irregular times, flooding their body with artificial light – and at night, most people tell me they relax by looking at multiple screens. [Our] inner physiology is in chaos, and Lumity provides the solution to this number one wellness stressor, circadian disruption.”
Natalie Pennicotte-Collier, Consultant Sleep Expert
Support Your Body
