Do People With Private Planes Get Jet Lag?

Generally speaking, we try not to spend too much time worrying about the hypothetical plight of private jet owners. That said, you may recall how Taylor Swift’s last-minute appearance at Super Bowl LVIII turned many of us into temporary time zone sleuths, frantically calculating to see if she’d make it from her Eras Tour performance in Tokyo on Feb. 10 to the Super Bowl in Las Vegas on Feb. 11. But as other people were placing last-minute bets and chefing up some game day-worthy snacks, we became increasingly curious about what a trip like that might do to a person — celebrity or otherwise.

In this specific instance, in order to see Travis Kelce play at the Super Bowl Swift had to cross the international date line, endure a 12-ish-hour flight and overcome a mere 17-hour time difference. She might not have shown it in the midst of the Kansas City Chiefs clinching the win, but generally speaking, do people with private planes still get jet lag? To get to the bottom of it, we asked some sleep experts (and someone with access to private jets).

Experts Featured in This Article:

Mike Gradisar, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and the head of sleep science at Sleep Cycle.

Seema Khosla, MD, FCCP, FAASM, is the medical director at North Dakota Center for Sleep.

Do People With Private Planes Still Get Jet Lag?

It goes without saying that flying private has its perks. In fact, according to sleep experts and private flyers, private travel can indeed help with jet lag, and there’s a few reasons why.

Light Controls

The first thing to think about when it comes to jet lag is your circadian rhythm, or your body’s internal clock. Another word for jet lag is “circadian dysrhythmia,” which basically just means your internal clock isn’t in sync with the time zone you’re in, explains Mike Gradisar, PhD. Light can be a huge help in shifting your circadian rhythm and syncing your body’s clock to a different time. Exposing yourself to light or darkness can essentially trick your body into going to sleep or waking up at a time it’s not used to, Dr. Gradisar says. This may enable you to “make that change to the new location a lot quicker and reduce jet lag,” he says.

With a private jet, you have more control over the cabin light, so if you need to sleep during the flight (or trick your body into thinking it’s already nighttime), you can turn off the lights and shut all the window blinds without worrying the pilot will randomly turn them back on with every little announcement. Lie-flat seats are also a major plus if your goal is to catch up on sleep and stay ahead of jet lag while in the air.

In-Flight Entertainment

Another strategy for beating jet lag is to stay up later to recalibrate your system. In Swift’s case, assuming she left Tokyo on Saturday, Feb. 10, around midnight local time after her show, she’d likely arrive in Las Vegas around 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. local time that same night. (Yes, because of the time zones, she’s essentially going back in time — although thankfully not to December.) Rather than sleeping on her flight and touching down well-rested (and therefore unable to doze off during the US nighttime, sending her into a jet-lag spiral), she might decide to try to stay awake on the plane so she’ll be nice and tired by the time she makes it back to a bedroom stateside.

According to *Peter, a source who agreed to be interviewed about his time traveling internationally on his family’s private jet, private planes are a lot less boring than commercial flights. He recalls one specific flight on international waters with his parents. “You felt like it was a plane that was designed for the people who were going to fly that day,” Peter says. “We had a TV. If we wanted to play video games, we could.” In other words, it’s pretty easy to distract yourself from jet lag when you’re in a private jet.

Reduced Stress

One more benefit to flying private is that it’s a lot less stressful, reducing “cognitive load,” says Seema Khosla, MD, FCCP, FAASM. When you fly commercial, you have to worry about everything from making your connection, to fitting your carry-on in the overhead bin, Dr. Khosla says. “By flying private, you’re eliminating that mental load,” she says. That might mean sleeping better when it’s time to drift off — whether that’s on the plane or upon reaching your destination — because you don’t have as many “cognitive arousals,” Dr. Khosla explains. As a result, you likely won’t find yourself feeling tired or wound-up from all the travel-related stress. Case in point: while Peter says he tends to feel a little bedraggled post-commercial air travel, he always feels “pretty refreshed” after private travel.

What Private Jets Can’t Do

That said, there are at least two jet lag triggers that even private jets can’t counteract. One is turbulence. “Smaller planes tend to be more susceptible to turbulence compared to a commercial jet,” Dr. Gradisar says, noting that this may cause sleep disturbances. However, many private jets can actually fly higher than commercial aircrafts, which helps them avoid most of that dreaded turbulence.

The second thing private jets can’t change is your specific sleep preferences, which can make jet lag more or less manageable, according to Dr. Gradisar. If you’re a night owl like Swift, for instance, traveling in certain directions might feel more difficult. “If she’s going Eastward to Las Vegas, that’s actually going in the opposite direction that her body wants to move if she’s a night owl,” Dr. Gradisar says, in reference to Swift. Luckily, as previously discussed, there are other ways to navigate jet lag on a private jet.

What We Can Learn From Private Jets

We can’t (and shouldn’t) all fly private. But there are a few ways to bring the ethos of private travel to the back of the plane with you. Dr. Khosla says to start by staying hydrated, which will help you sleep better both on and after the flight. She adds having a good neck pillow helps too (a nudge I sorely need). Dr. Gradisar notes that a big benefit of flying private is fewer disturbances, but noise-canceling headphones and a solid sleep mask can also mimic that magic.

You can set yourself up for jet lag success by carving out time a few weeks before your trip to figure out what the time change will look like and prepare your body so it’s less shocked, Dr. Khosla says. A good mini analogue for travel-related time change is Daylight Savings Time. When you lose or gain an hour, you might still be hungry around 6 p.m. if that’s when you usually have dinner — even if it’s technically 5 p.m. post-clocks-change. But moving mealtime back or forward by about 10 minutes a day in the week leading up to the change can make things easier. “I did this with my fish and I did it when my kids were little,” Dr. Khosla says. This same strategy can be applied to time zone changes.

Like Taylor, a clear mastermind, “you have to have a plan,” Dr. Khosla says.

Molly Longman is a freelance journalist who loves to tell stories at the intersection of health and politics.

Chandler Plante is an assistant editor for PS Health and Fitness. She has over four years of professional journalism experience, previously working as an editorial assistant for People magazine and contributing to Ladygunn, Millie, and Bustle Digital Group. In her free time, she enjoys finding new ways to rock her 18(!) different eye patches, and making videos about chronic illness, beauty, and disability.