How do people sleep on planes?
I can fall asleep almost anywhere. I routinely fall asleep in the break room at work. Once, I was helping a friend fix his car, and I fell asleep on his garage floor when he went inside to get water.
But in a hot metal tube tearing through the sky, with my neck all kinked? Get out of here, man.
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neck pillow, eye mask, noise-cancelling headphones, and not comfortably
Add some alcohol to that list and you've got my regular routine
I use ear plugs then put on nose cancelling headphones.
Complete silence. I didn't hear the crying baby that was screaming for the 10 hour flight until the last hour lol.
Same here, except I use ear plugs as well as headphones
I am gonna be honest with you here. Some of us born with a gift, given directly from god. They can sleep, without thinking embarrassing memories, without using any medicine, without finding comfort itself. But you and I... and many others... we are not welcomed to this dream world of easy sleepers. We are not gifted.
While many times it is a gift it is a curse if we suppose to be with someone. We go on a road trip? You barely close the door I am asleep. We ride buss I am asleep as soon as I sit down. Air plane I wake up 8 hours later. Hang out in bed I am gone.
I have to fight to stay awake but that is in vain. I will lose the fight five minutes later.
I usually have trouble falling asleep and can't just take a nap in the afternoon - never could.
But on a plane I'll be asleep minutes after the engines started and I'll happily sleep for hours through an entire flight. Something about the engine noise and movement of the cabin is very soothing to me. Same for trains, busses, cars.
And yet I'll regularly lie in my bed awake desperately trying to fall asleep..
Sounds like you might benefit from some white noise sleeping at home. Can play it through your phone or even an old radio set to some quiet static.
My partner is one of these. I have photos of him sleeping on planes, trains, boats and cars. He can be worried about something, or stressed about tomorrow, and still fall asleep within 5 minutes of laying down. I am so jealous.
LOL. I cracked up
It is impossible for me to sleep on a plane, I have tried everything. In the end, I just have flight anxiety, and there is nothing I can do.
Did you not read past the title? They literally state that he has no trouble falling asleep in situations that most would have trouble with and their only issue seems to be planes.
Someone lacks sense of humor
No, you're just not funny.
The jet engine noise puts me to sleep. Those sweet delta waves.
I fly jetBlue or Southwest; no Delta for me.
Nah y'all gotta fly Spirit, I'm still surprised we made it off the ground
For real. I sometimes put plane engine noise at home as background noise to fall asleep
Drugs
I am not sure if this is a joke, but many people take something that makes them sleepy. I can’t do it.
Because your doc won’t prescribe you anything? Not sure what you mean by “can’t” do it?
Pure exhaustion from all the "hurry up and wait" of airport bullshit.
By the time I've gotten out of bed, gotten ready, travelled to the airport, dragged all my shit through the airport, unpacked and repacked half of it through security, boarded the plane ... my body just kinda gives up on being awake.
That's super funny. Window seat is smart if you're having trouble falling asleep.
I usually do okay leaning back (I guess my head is small enough to not spill over the sides of the tri-fold headrest).
Every time I'm in a plane, I get leg pain. I don't know where people put their legs and be comfortable. Once I was up for 50 hours at least, got a bunch of beer on the plane and still couldn't sleep.
Like a baby. Just like a baby.
I've actually slept through a complete landing, disembarkation of half the plane, then taking off. Woke up completely unaware we did our stopoff already.
I may have been recovering from a hangover, but whatevs.
Waking up crying every 2 hours? I guarantee that whoever came up with that saying to mean sleeping well never had kids.
I struggled to sleep on planes even before I had an energetic little kid to keep under control. I don't like sleeping while sitting up so I only ever manage to sleep lightly for a couple of hours at most.
Noise cancelling headphones and the antihistamine tablets that say “will cause drowsiness do not operate machinery or drive” washed down with a pint of beer. Sleep for 6 hours no problems.
No idea but as SOON as we start to taxi I am out like a light...
I also fall asleep at the dentist so maybe it's just me?
I'm also a dentist sleeper and fall asleep on planes as soon as the engines get going. We out here.
No way! You cannot possibly fall asleep holding your mouth agape!
Hot? I'm usually cold on airplanes. That would definitely make a difference for me.
Neck pillow for the neck kinks. I don't like the horseshoe shaped ones though, I like the trtl brand style. Expensive, but it became worth it when I took a job requiring a couple flights per month minimum.
Trtl is the only thing that has worked for me.
While I'm usually also freezing on the plane I noticed that Japanese Airlines cranks up the Heat during the night.
There’s such a huge difference between airlines and their post-meal temperature. BA will go into full sauna-mode. Cathay goes to freezer.
If it's hot in the plane, that might be blocking you from sleeping. Personally I'm always cold in planes and fall asleep relatively easily both on planes and elsewhere.
It also helps to be jet-lagged. Knocks you out right quick :P Only applies to return trips though.
Probably why they put the temperature a bit lower than expected, sleeping means people using less oxygen, using toilets less, drinking less, and moving around less. I'm sure the stewards and stewardesses prefer more people to sleep so they have a less hectic workload.
White noise. The white noise knocks me out almost immediately.
Sensory reduction (earplugs, facemask) and some benadryl.
Only time I could ever sleep on a plane was after a business trip were I worked 18 hours days for almost 2 weeks. I was so tired I fell asleep right after boarding and buckling in. Not even takeoff and landing woke me up. Flight attendant shook me awake. LOL
First you find a comfortable position. Sometimes a pillow helps. Then close your eyes.
Failed at step 1
The clouds are pretty. But speaking from experience, connecting flights/long flights will just let you drop in and out due to exhaustion. You will randomly wake up because of the weird positioning of your neck like 5 times. Heaphones help a lot to sleep. But I conclude, quality sleep can be found on airport floors(not joking).
There's definitely a lot to be said about the exhaustion from long flights. I used to travel often between east Asia and the States, so I had to get used to sleeping on planes out of necessity. I'd always try to get a long layover in either Seoul or Beijing because their airports allowed for sleep. Seoul had a layover area where there were reclining lounges that were really comfortable to sleep on, and Beijing has a hotel in the airport where you can get a single room with a bed. It also has a shower, which is awesome when you're getting off of a 10+ hour flight.
Flip down the tray table and lay your arms and head on it. That's the only way I can do it
I'm too afraid I'll break the table
This comment made me reflexively call my chiropractor
I'm 5'8" and that doesn't work for me, there's not enough room between me and the seat in front of me to fold all the way over onto the table before my head hits the seat in front of me.
on my first trip to SE Asia I stsyed up overnight and planned to sleep the whole time on the plane. This was advice I was given to help combat jet lag for 12 hour difference of time. Turns out...I can't sleep on planes. I arrived delirious and. borderline hallucinating. I slept like 18 hours once at the hotel. I now power through the whole flight with caffeine and videogames after taking a nap at home as close to flight time as possible.
Worst one for me was a business trip to Asia where I worked Friday, went home for a couple hours and then headed to the airport for a 1AM flight. 13 hours on the flight where I don't sleep at all, landed at my destination at 5AM local time. Had to then kill an entire day and pushed through till 10PM before going to bed. I think it was around 40 hours between beds.
When traveling between far time zones, I do my best to arrive at my destination at night, so I can immediately go to sleep. I can't really sleep on planes, so it's easier to force myself to stay awake for 24-30 hours and just sleep when I get there.
I traveled to India in 2018, which was a 12.5 hour time zone difference from where I lived at the time. I had my flight all scheduled to arrive back at home at night like I like. But my flight got cancelled due to a tropical storm. I ended up having the airline find me another flight that didn't have the layover where the tropical storm was, so I actually got home sooner... But now in the morning. I couldn't sleep on the plane no matter how hard I tried. So I arrived back at home at 10 AM, which felt like night time to my body. And this was after essentially going a whole day without sleep already. As soon as I got home I passed out and slept all day. Worst thing I could have done. I went pretty much a whole week of sleeping all day and laying in bed all night with my eyes wide open. It wasn't until day 7 back home that I started feeling somewhat normal again.
I also stay overnight and plan on sleeping during the flight. Except I actually sleep like a baby. I am usually having trouble staying awake for the dinner.
Last flight to Japan the plane was mostly empty, so all of my company we moved to empty rows, we each had 3 seats to ourselves and slept lying down like in a bed. Best flight ever. Also did the same in the return flight.
Yup. The only time I actually slept at all was when I laid across three seats. It's only happened once
The noise of the engines tends to help me. Same with sleeping on a long car journey. They hum or white noise or whatever of the engine and the road really help. Also why I like to sleep with a fan on. Not only to help cool down. But also because the noise really gets me to fall asleep sooner.
That's what I do. I purposely pick seats nearest the engines
I have flown a hundred times and slept exactly once. It was like teleporting from Osaka to Sydney. If I could do that more, it would be very good.
Headphones in, zone out, drift off, wake up with a crooked neck.
I'm 6'4" (193cm). I don't.
I'm not as tall, but that's my problem too. Now give me a business/first class seat that reclines and I fit in and I'll sleep no problem!
I used to fly a lot. I'm at the point where I board the plane, sit, close my eyes, and wake up when we start pulling into the gate at our destination.
I don't use a neck pillow or anything. Usually just grab a water bottle before boarding, because my mouth gets crazy dry.
Tell you GP that you have anxiety when you fly. They’ll prescribe a benzo.
Enjoy your snooze.
Then you start snoring and people wake you up anyway.
My last flight had a massive snorer. It was pretty funny at first. At hour 8 it was insanely frustrating. He was woken up four times by various people. Went straight back to snoring.
So I actually have a lot of trouble sleeping, and have restless legs and periodic limb movement disorder. I also have pretty bad diagnosed ADHD and brown noise absolutely helps calm me down.... So that engine noise? Puts me right to sleep I don't know what it is about it.
Also I usually smoke a bunch of weed before going to the airport so that helps.
I used to not be able to sleep on airliners, but then I got a job that required I fly on one once a week. By far the best way to make time pass fast.
Neck pillow, earplugs, eyemask
Noise cancelling headphones and listen to something pleasant.
At some point, the seats stopped leaning far back enough so that gravity kept my head in decline. That way I could sleep. Now that they don't lean back far enough, my head keeps dropping forward, so I constantly am kept in a state or awake.
Hey a neck pillow so you can tilt it to the side.
Neck pillows make it worse because it forces my head further forward.
Weird, my neck pillow makes it easier to lay my head to either side.
It props it to the side, but my head drops forward anyway because I'm not leaned back far enough. Maybe I just have a heavy head?
Ambien, alcohol, etc
Alcohol makes me need to pee often so that can backfire. Makes you dehydrated too. 😅
Exhaustion too. Often travel routines are ridiculous, like having to get up after 3 hours of sleep.
Diphenhydramine, melatonin, neck pillow, and EYE MASK. Critical to block out light. Bonus for noise cancwlli headphones playing noise.
Badly.
Idk its pretty easy I'm usually tired and bored as shit
I started wearing ear plugs and an eye mask every day. Eventually I got so used to it to the point that 1) it feels comfortable and 2) my body associates those things with sleep.
When on a plane I just put the ear plugs and eye mask on, and my brain just knows it's sleep time.
Also, not all neck pillows are created equal. I found the biggest factor is the pillow having straps to secure it to the head rest. It will do the work of holding your head and you won't drift sideways as you fall asleep.
There is a good trick: Business class. As I only fly business class long haul as I only fly for the job.
And luckily I can force my clients to pay for it.
Otherwise, as a rather long and large person, I am fucked.
Gummy and melatonin. Timed right, it actually works
I honestly have never had a problem sleeping on planes. If I'm tired before I get to the airport, I can often sleep through takeoff. On short flights I've only woken up after the plane lands.
For long haul flights I typically look to see what the local time of my destination will be when I arrive. If it's at night, I stay awake for the whole flight so I can crash as soon as I get where I'm going. If morning, I'll sleep the whole way so I can start the day fresh-ish. It really cuts down on jetlag.
For context, I got a remote job in 2016 and went full digital nomad basically until covid hit. I was living out of a single suitcase and flying once a month on average. I genuinely love flying. Pretty over the whole fascination with travel though.. In some ways it kinda ruins you. Now I'll only go somewhere if there are things I know I can only buy in the destination or if I'm going to visit friends or family. I have zero interest left for any tourist destinations, historical sites, museums, etc..
Personally, drugs
The older I get, the easier it is to sleep just about anywhere.
I like what comedian Ismo said, there are two types of people: people who can sleep anywhere and people who can't sleep anywhere. I'm from the first. You seem to be in the middle. I can fall asleep standing up.
I can’t. I book day flights.
I sleep better on day flights. They raise the cabin temp on red eyes and it makes me restless.
I couldnt sleep for shit when I took an overnight flight a long time ago. The air pressure messing with my ears made it too uncomfortable to do so.
Like a baby. The older I've gotten I've gained the ability to fall asleep virtually anywhere. My wife is super jealous that I'm able to be asleep for an entire 5-7 hour flight.
Ambien. Anyway, I have a Zzzband "pillow" that's essentially a large eye mask that has straps to strap your head to the headrest of your seat, great "travel pillow" I've ever used and I fly about 40 times a year.
I was recently on a 12 hour long flight and I couldn't sleep for more than 1 hour. If I am taking a domestic flight, I sleep like a baby. I had the hostess' wake me up for meals and it was always embarassing arrrrr
I am the exact opposite. I can conk out in a widebody jet but the domestic jets just feel too claustrophobic. I do tend to doze off here and there but on international flights I can get several hours at a time. The free booze helps as well.
Alcohol and Benadryl. Its worth noting that I never feel like I've slept. To me it feels like I am just hovering on the edge of sleep the entire time, but my wife says I do sleep for a solid hour or two at a time.
Ear plugs, hat over my face, and fatigue. Sure I'm sore afterwards, but if i can sleep through at least half the flight I'm happy.
A neck pillow and noise cancelling headphones makes the trick for me.
Also, with the neck pillow, the open side goes back
How do you keep it on then?
The only time I ever slept comfortably in coach was when I was younger and on drugs.
These days, whenever it's reasonable, I upgrade.
Google credit card churning. Work your way through amex and other point systems. Get free / cheap business class tickets with lay flat seats.
Alcohol and Dramamine. At least, that's how I do it so I'm not having a panic attack the entire flight.
I've only ever been comfortable in a small plane where I can see the pilot because I'm sitting like next to or behind them. If the engines cut out, those can glide a lot easier than a huge jumbo.
I have two wolves in me. One wishes he could be pilot. The other is afraid of flying.
You may (or may not) be surprised to learn that modern jet liners have much higher glide ratios than small planes (like a Cessna 172), though even the glide ratio of a Cessna is pretty damn good at about 9:1, getting 9,000 feet horizontally for every 1,000 feet of altitude.
All pilots are trained in engine-out procedures as part of their license training and, while unequivocally an emergency condition, is fairly benign until it’s time to land—preferably on a suitable landing surface.
Face your fear and go on a discovery flight with a flight instructor at your local municipal airport.
Melatonin helps. It’s a natural chemical your brain releases to help make you drowsy at bedtime and you can get it over the counter to help sleep. It also resets your biological clock which makes it helpful for jet lag.
That with noise cancelling headphones or earplugs, a sleep mask to cover the eyes, and laying as flat as possible (even paying for business class) all help.
I haven’t been on a very long flight. Longest was 2 hours. Every time I keep my Kindle ready. Have multiple podcasts etc. But right after take-off, I go off like a bulb and wake up only after landing
Something to do with a combination of pressure difference, engine noise and all. Also it’s pretty cold usually
Before: Turtl Travel Pillow. It's not easy, but it helps.
Now: Business class. I fly enough to rack up enough air miles that a seat upgrade is affordable if not free.
If I have a partner to travel with me, I can sleep by holding their hand and leaning on them or by laying on their lap.
I have also slept on semi-strangers lap once.... I'll give some context... We all were apart of an event ... Staff all knew who everyone was, so there was some implicit trust amongst us peers. As a result, I figured I'd ask this one person I was sitting with to hold their hand. The person later asked if I was tired & invited me to lay on their lap, so I could sleep. In any other travel, asking strangers to do such thing could have larger risks obviously.
A soldier fell asleep on my arm on a flight. I figured he needed the sleep and let him.
Awww that was sweet of you
For me it's the gentle lullof the motor and mild sway of the plane. I just can't stay awake if I try
1-2mg of Melatonin, remain motionless with eyes closed for ~20 minutes, you'll be out like a light. Make sure you take a smaller dose - most gummies are 5 or 10 mg, it honestly works better if you subdivide.
Gentle turbulence actually helps, believe it or not.
Alcohol makes me sleepy, so I'll drink a little and then listen to rainstorms with my headphones.
I've never been on a long flight, but on overnight Amtrak routes I can only sleep with earbuds and music
With my face pasted against the window. After a while, all those tiny clouds look like a field of sheep 💤
You can't do that anymore :/ half the seats aren't aligned to window properly, and the other half the window is so far away from the window seat that you can't lean against it.
True, I'm starting to wonder what the point of the windows even is on modern planes (apparently one reason is for people outside to look in).
The one time I slept in a plane for more than an hour was when I wrapped my head in a blanket and had an empty seat next to me to lean on.
idk mate, I just decide to sleep and eventually I do.
I once read somewhere that it's something to do with the altitude or the cabin air pressure that make people feel sleepy.
Personally. I can't do it and I find it very uncomfortable even trying to get to sleep on those long journeys. Even if I do fall asleep, hoping to paas the time and it ends up not being long and time has never passed.
I actually find it easier to fall a sleep on a plane - not that I have any issues anywhere else 😁 but as soon as I get on that plane, you bet I'm gonna get some zzz time. Even if its just a 2hr flight
I rarely sleep longer than 90 minutes at a time, unless I'm physically exhausted already. And yes, the neck hurts, but exhaustion hurts more.
Business class lie flat seat for long haul flights. Tickets are insanely expensive.. fortunately I have a ton of air miles from company travel. Once you try it there's no going back.
I've been on, like, fewer than 50 flights, so I don't think I've slept on one.
Those little neck pillows they board the plane wearing.
Idk I can't sleep on planes either.
Zopiclone, mostly.
Zopiclone baby
I fall asleep long before we ever take off usually by putting a podcast on the earbuds, wrapping a sweater stiff around my neck and focusing on the vibrations from the engine. Usually wake up around landing announcements. Never realized this was a blessing.