2 months ago
9
You know the feeling – the knee-buckling wave of tiredness that hits you mid-afternoon. The nodding dog syndrome during dinner. Waking up bright as a meerkat at 3am.
Jet lag is a fickle mistress. Some people are annoyingly unaffected (“Oh, I never get jet lag”); others (like me) can be burdened for weeks. The most frustrating part is the randomness – the will I/won’t I make it to dinner/sleep through the night/be making tea at 4am.
But what if it wasn’t random? What if jet lag was “a choice” and you could “feel great on every trip”? This is the bold claim made by Flykitt, a product that aims to eliminate jet lag and travel fatigue. Developed from research with US Navy SEALs and fighter pilots, it uses an app, a pair of blue light-blocking glasses and a range of supplements to fast-track the realignment of your internal body clock.
Endorsed by everyone from CEOs to sports stars, it reports a 93 per cent success rate and even offers a money-back guarantee. Could this finally be the panacea that frees me from jet lag’s merciless grip?
To put it to the test, I choose the kind of gruelling, multi-stop journey that’s all-too-common for Aussies returning from Europe. First leg: London to Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Second leg: Almaty, Kazakhstan, to Seoul, South Korea. Third leg: Seoul to Sydney.
For this itinerary, Flykitt sends me three kits – two International packs for legs one and three and one Domestic kit for the shorter hop from Almaty to Seoul.
After installing the app, you create a profile (based on age, sex, diet, exercise patterns, caffeine and alcohol intake), then enter your flight details and your desired sleep routine in the destination.
From this, it generates a schedule with the exact times you should wake up, eat, sleep, take a supplement and either seek or avoid sunlight. Each pill contains natural ingredients like B vitamins, magnesium, omega-3s and melatonin to help reduce inflammation, fight fatigue and reset your body clock.
On paper, it sounds great. In practice, it’s less straightforward. For the flight from London to Tashkent, I’m supposed to wear the orange-tinted glasses and avoid bright light for three hours beforehand – not all that practical when you’re farewelling family and negotiating an airport. I’m also instructed to sleep for three hours shortly after take-off – a challenging endeavour during meal service.
Despite these hiccups, I follow the program as best I can, but still arrive in Tashkent feeling dazed and weary. Ordinarily, I’d try to get a few hours’ sleep after checking into the hotel, but the app tells me to push through, and I manage to stay awake until 11pm. To my utter surprise and delight, I sleep straight through until 7am (a miracle!) and only have minimal brain fog the next day.
The second leg is less successful. Despite Flykitt’s assurance that I can use the Domestic kit for the six-hour flight from Almaty to Seoul, the app says I’m crossing too many time zones and forces me to choose the International kit. Which means I don’t have enough supplements and have to skip some doses. Notwithstanding this and a flight delay, I still fare better than I would have done without it. Plus, I’m getting used to the funny looks from other passengers whenever I don my orange-tinted glasses.
Final test: the overnight flight from Seoul to Sydney. By now, I’m a Flykitt ninja. I follow the program religiously, manage a few hours’ sleep on the plane and ignore the urge to nap when I get home at 8am. The supplements get me through the day and for the first time in years, I enjoy eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. It still takes another day for the spaced-out feeling to completely disappear, but it’s a much quicker recovery than normal.
All in all, is it worth it? It depends. If you suffer badly from jet lag and can justify the expense ($US99 [$A148] for one international round trip; $US69 for refills), give it a go. It takes planning and discipline, but it removes all the guesswork from what to do and when. Hopefully, you’re one of the 93 per cent it helps. If not, there’s always the money-back guarantee.
See flykitt.com
Flykitt provided the writer with three kits for review.
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