How to Sleep on a Red Eye Flight: Timing Before, During and After (Sponsored)

To sleep on a red eye flight, eat dinner before you board, have your last cup of coffee about 9.5 hours before you plan to sleep, and go to sleep as soon as the plane levels off. A 5 to 6 hour red eye only leaves room for about 2 or 3 full sleep cycles, so the next day matters too: one short nap in the early afternoon, then stay up until a normal local bedtime.

The jet lag calculator builds a sleep and light plan for your exact route. This post covers the red eye itself, with times worked out on the site's sleep math: 90-minute cycles, 15 minutes to fall asleep, and a 5-hour caffeine half-life.

What's the best way to sleep on a red eye?

The best way is to treat boarding like bedtime: arrive fed, low on caffeine and ready to sleep the moment the seatbelt sign allows. Here's a typical red eye, a 10:30 PM departure with a 5 hour 15 minute flight, crossing three time zones east.

Times in the table are on your departure city's clock, because that's what your body is still running on during the flight.

How do you fall asleep on a red eye?

Fall asleep on a red eye by skipping late caffeine and alcohol, blocking light and noise, and lying back right after takeoff instead of waiting for the meal. Every minute you spend awake after takeoff comes out of a short window.

• Eat before you board. A full meal served an hour into the flight pushes your sleep later.
• Skip alcohol. It can make you drowsy at first, but it's no help for a short, good-quality night, and mouth tape and alcohol don't mix.
• Block the cabin. An eye mask and earplugs or noise-canceling headphones help more than anything else you can pack.
• Choose a window seat so no one climbs over you, and lean against the wall.
• Keep screens off. Shows eat directly into your 2 or 3 cycles.

What's the caffeine cutoff before a red eye?

If you lie back to sleep at 11:00 PM, stop an 8 oz coffee by about 1:22 PM so it's under 25 mg by then. Caffeine's average half-life is about 5 hours, so half of a dose is still in your system 5 hours later. In a controlled study, 400 mg of caffeine taken even 6 hours before bed cut sleep by more than an hour.

That airport latte at 6:00 PM still leaves about half its caffeine in you at 11:00 PM. At the gate, decaf or herbal tea is safer.

How many sleep cycles fit on a red eye?

A 5 or 5.5 hour red eye fits 2 full cycles (3 hours of sleep); a 6 hour flight fits 3 cycles (4.5 hours). That assumes you lose about 30 minutes at each end to taxiing, climbing and descent, plus 15 minutes to fall asleep.

If you only have room for 2 cycles, set a gentle alarm for the end of the second rather than getting woken mid-cycle by the descent. You'll land short on sleep either way, which is what the next day is for. If you're debating whether to sleep at all, see whether to sleep 1 hour or stay up.

How do you sleep better on a red eye in dry cabin air?

Expect the cabin to feel very dry, so drink water, and make nose breathing as easy as you can. In one small study on long-distance flights, cabin humidity fell below 10% within about 2 hours of takeoff and stayed there, and travelers' skin hydration dropped quickly. Dry air can leave your mouth parched and your nose feeling stuffy, which is one more thing that wakes you up.

For the broader rules on when in-flight sleep helps or hurts jet lag, read when to sleep on a plane.

How long should you sleep after a red eye flight?

After a red eye, take one nap of either 20 minutes or 90 minutes in the early afternoon, then stay up until a normal local bedtime. Avoid the 30 to 60 minute range, which tends to end in deep sleep and leaves you groggier.

• Lying down at 1:00 PM: with 10 minutes to fall asleep, set the alarm for 1:30 PM (20-minute nap) or 2:40 PM (one 90-minute cycle).
• Not after mid-afternoon. Naps after about 3:00 PM can make it harder to fall asleep that night. The nap calculator flags late naps for you.
• Go to bed at a normal local time. For a 7:00 AM wake-up, that's 11:15 PM for 5 cycles or 9:45 PM for 6.
• Get morning daylight after an eastbound red eye; it can help your body clock move toward local time. The jet lag calculator shows when to seek and avoid light on your route.

Don't drive yourself home if you're fighting to keep your eyes open after landing.

Where do TitanAir strips and Titan Mouth Tape fit on a red eye?

This post is sponsored by Titan Recovery. If dry cabin air leaves your nose feeling stuffy, TitanAir Nasal Strips are drug-free external nasal dilators: flexible spring-loaded bands sit across the bridge of the nose and lift the nasal passages open, with a skin-safe adhesive that comes off without residue. They're small enough to put on in your seat after takeoff.

Titan Mouth Tape is bamboo silk that holds the lips gently together so you breathe through your nose, and it peels off with no residue. On a plane, use it only if you can breathe easily through your nose and you're comfortable having your mouth taped in a seat next to strangers; try it at home first. Titan also sells both together as the Titan Sleep System, from $62.95. Neither product fixes jet lag.

Mouth tape is not a treatment for sleep apnea and doesn't replace CPAP. Never use it with a blocked nose, after alcohol, sleeping pills or other sedatives, if you feel nauseated, or on children. If you snore loudly with gasping or pauses in breathing, talk to a doctor.