As you already know, your body has a natural biological clock that can easily become unbalanced every time you change time zones or simply when you stay up late and don’t get enough sleep. The result is fatigue, poor concentration, irritability, hunger, and general malaise.

To reset your biological clock, there are two key factors to take into account: the sun and food. In fact, it’s as simple as that: you just need some sun (at the right time!) and some food (also at the right time!). Get these two right, and the rest becomes a piece of cake for your body to sort out and bring happiness and well-being back to you.

Keep in mind that although in what follows I’m mainly talking about overcoming jet lag due to time zone changes, most of the rules apply when you want to get back to a normal pace after a few late nights.

If you’re going to be flying a lot, there are a few things to watch out for to avoid severe jet lag:

• Set your watch to the time zone you are headed to as soon as you board the plane. Don’t play mind games by constantly trying to calculate the time difference between where you flew from and where you’re supposed to land. Forget the old time zone and work only with the new one while on the plane.
• There is some benefit to fasting for 10 to 16 hours starting a couple of hours before boarding the plane. If you can’t do that, at least eat your meals according to your new time zone.
• Do not drink any alcohol on the plane. Drink coffee ONLY if it is early in the morning in the new time zone.

When you arrive at your new destination:

• Get up early in the morning and go out in the sun for 30 minutes without sunglasses.
• Get as much natural light exposure as you can throughout the day
• Drink coffee ONLY in the morning. Absolutely no caffeine after noon.
• Keep hydrated.
• Stay away from all electronic devices as much as you can, but especially after 7pm (no TV too)
• Sleep in a total blackout. Even if you can’t sleep at night, rest in the dark, don’t turn on the lights, and especially don’t turn on your computer, phone, or TV if you can’t sleep.

Follow these tips and you can quickly and easily reset your biological clock.