When you buy through our links, we may earn an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you.

NLP for jet lag

December 31, 2022

NLP for Jet Lag? Given that I travel a lot to Asia and the USA as an NLP Trainer, I am very familiar with the topic.

In my 20s, I was hypnotized by another NLP trainer to sleep on planes, which made jet lag easier. In my early 30s, I was sick and one of the symptoms was insomnia, for which I devised some NLP tricks. In my late 30s, I had to start using NLP on the flight and when I was home. But it seemed as soon as my 40th birthday came around, also that wasn’t sufficient anymore. It didn’t matter if I slept on the flight, the first night at home I would sleep, and then the tap dancing begun. Three days later, I would be crying and not functioning properly.

What did I try?

1. Eating light or not at all on the flight. Hydrate!

2. Using an App to adjust times before flying and during flying.

3. Using several apps to be hypnotized to fall asleep.

4. Melatonin.

5. These no-jet lag pills that you start taking before and during the flight.

6. Experimenting with different suggestions online, in terms of when to go to sleep and when to wake up.

7. A flickering LED light device, with pulsating sounds.

Allthe things only helped a little, and did not solve the problem

Until I discovered the magic combination. This has successfully held up during a trip from Amsterdam to Los Angeles, 2 trips to Bali, and 3 tips to Miami. My friends are nothing sort of shocked, that I can get off a plane and am totally fine now! I recommended others to do the same with great results. The solution for jet lag is part NLP, and part supplements.

NLP for jet lag

Spacing out while in flight – self hypnosis

I use a technique called “expanded awareness”, which is inherently self-hypnosis. I use it as much as I can on the flight. I pick a spot above eye level that I can focus on. I stare at the spot with full awareness. I start to expand my awareness (vision), wider while focusing on the spot. It is like taking a panorama shot. I keep going wider and wider, until I actually get a sense that I can see unconsciously behind me. This changes the brain waves through self-hypnosis. In a sense it is changing the NLP submodalities of what I am seeing. I space out. I often do this by the way, with some noise canceling headphones on, or ear plugs. Sometimes, once I am sufficiently spaced out enough and the airplane lights are OFF (the airline crew is actually trying to mimic night time for you intentionally), I put on an eye mask. Sometimes I sleep, sometimes I don’t. But I arrive fully rested this way.

The NLP falling asleep remedy

When I suffered from insomnia about a decade ago as a symptom of a physical condition. I solved my problem, with this tool. This is now backed up by science!

The Hotel Room Version of the NLP Pattern to Promote Falling Asleep.

I imagine a normal brightness image of a hotel room I once slept in, I dim it slowly, until I see blank. This takes 5-15 seconds. It makes it impossible to think in this process. The number of seconds I choose, relates to the fact whether or not I can stop my thinking. Sometimes I reduce down to 3 seconds, if that is what is required.
I immediately take another hotel room, and I repeat the process.
Repeat until I am asleep.

Sometimes I do alternative versions, where I give myself a tour around the room or imagine beaches I have been on throughout my life time, or other nice nature areas and mountains.

The nice thing is, yesterday a former NLP Training student and fellow NLP trainer sent me some articles that indicate this is now scientifically tested and proven. They did a study where only random objects were used, and they did not think to use NLP submodalities (in this case fading out to make it dimmer and dimmer, until I get a blank wasn’t done.) The important thing is that you pick images and NOT have a thought process at all.

Utilizing the right what-if scenario

When I catch myself at any point doing a what-if scenario of doom, I change it. The what if scenario is me negatively talking to myself, and often in my minds eye imagining the fact that I am going to get or have jet lag. Sometimes I would even talk about it out loud to others “I will get jet lag once I am home”, or “jet lag is going to start now.” Right, now I intentionally imagine a red stop sign, and say inside my head loudly “STOP!” Then I run an amazing alternate version of the “what-if” scenario, one where I can be excited to be free of jet lag, and have normal sleeping patterns. I also talk about it to others in this way. For me, as I have done this so often now, and I have a really good coding brain thanks to a lot of NLP. It has become automatic to think this way.

Conclusion: NLP for jet lag

Now if you are an NP Practitioner or a coach, remember that there are a lot of different other ways that you can use NLP for jet lag. Please leave your recommendations below for others as to how you use NLP for jet lag.