How to Successfully Sleep on a Plane

Conceptually, sleeping on an airplane is a modern marvel. (You're asleep! In the sky!) Realistically, sleeping on an airplane is a fucking nightmare. If you’ve ever tried to snooze in economy, you know the highly uncomfortable drill. You’re upright on a slab of metal cushioned with an inch of, I don’t know, sand??? Your knees are smooshed into the seat in front of you while the linebacker next to you is cramping your elbow room—it’s not an experience designed for restful slumbering. There’s also the loud plane noises, the cruelty of other passengers yanking violently on your seat back (to those passengers: go straight to hell where you belong), the crying babies, the duty-free shopping announcements. But sometimes you really need to sleep on a plane despite the back-breaking, chaotic conditions of flying coach. To improve your odds of catching Zs at cruising altitude, we interviewed sleep scientists, doctors, hypnotists, and other experts. Here’s what we learned.

Beware of the booze cart
Even though a drink or two may calm you down, the cons may outweigh the pros. “Alcohol does not help the situation—it will contribute to dehydrate you and interfere with your sleep,” says Terry Cralle, a Certified Clinical Sleep Educator, spokesperson for the Better Sleep Council, and registered nurse. “Avoid alcohol and caffeine. They are diuretics, causing you to go to the bathroom frequently. This, along with the dry cabin air, will increase your chances of dehydration. It’s been said that one drink in the air can act like two on the ground.” A boozy flight may sound fun, but it is not conducive to sleeping.

Black out with an eye mask
In order to get some shuteye, you’ll want to make things as dark as possible. "When you’re in a dark environment, and no light is shining through your eye lids, your pineal gland in your brain releases higher levels of melatonin,” says Comprehensive Sleep Medicine Associates’ Jerald H. Simmons, MD. “This melatonin rise enhances the brain's ability to sleep. So wearing an eye mask can prove very helpful.” This model in particular blocks out light better than most, and has extra space in the eye area so that there’s no uncomfortable pressure on your eyelids—plus it’s got a velcro strap so you can control how tightly the mask grips your head. (The only slight negative is that it looks like a tiny bra, but it works so who cares?)

Support your poor neck
A seat in economy is wholly different from your bed at home. You only get to recline about a hand’s length, which is bad news for resting your sweet head. Give that thing some cushion. “A good travel pillow can really help you get to sleep on an airplane,” says Chris Brantner, Certified Sleep Science Coach at SleepZoo.com. Brantner suggests going with Travelrest, Cabeau, or BCOZZY. “While I like all three for various reasons, the cooling properties of the Cabeau Evolution Cool Travel Pillow are ideal for people like me who tend to feel smothered and hot when using neck pillows.” Sure, it might look dorky, but it's worth it if you're actually able to stay asleep for more than five minutes.

Medicate, but carefully
The pharmaceutical world may be able to accommodate your in-flight needs with prescription sleeping pills or even over-the-counter melatonin. However, it’s not as easy as popping whatever your doctor recommends. “It is important to understand the duration of action of any sleeping pill you take,” says Noah Siegel, a board-certified sleep medicine physician at Harvard with a sleep-devoted blog and website. “If the medication has a long duration of action (half life), you can have residual sleepiness or feel 'hung over' at your destination.” Siegel’s advice? Practice makes perfect. “I always advise my patients to try their sleeping medications at home first. If someone has a bad reaction to a medication, you don't want it to be at 35,000 feet!”

Fight stress
Stress, it turns out, is not great when you’re trying to sleep. Since travel is terribly stressful, do your best to relax, or kiss your restorative napping goodbye. “When stress hormones are flowing it is very difficult to sleep by design,” says Nicole Porter, PhD, a sleep and fatigue specialist. “Adrenaline, for example, is produced to help prepare the body’s 'fight or flight' response during times of stress. Cortisol also makes us feel more alert and prepared for action, and this is the opposite of sleep. Frequent fliers have it the worst because they are subject to chronic stressors, regular hormonal disruptions, and frequent disturbance of the body’s natural sleep-wake cycle.” Try to relax as much as possible to combat these natural responses to the (bad) stimulation of travel. Listen to music, get a pre-flight massage, or meditate.

Train your brain to sleep
Speaking of meditating—falling asleep could be a case of mind over matter, says Nancy B. Irwin, a doctor of psychology and clinical hypnotherapist at Seasons Recovery Center in Malibu. She recommends using hypnotherapy to train yourself into trusting the power of your mind to allow you to sleep, instead of holding onto negative thoughts (like the one telling you you’ll never fall asleep on this fully-booked flight to Atlanta). “Just like babies can sleep through the Super Bowl or the Macy's Day Parade, we innately know how to sleep when we are tired and need sleep. We learn to believe that we can or cannot sleep in certain situations and what has been learned, can be un-learned,” Irwin explains. “One can use the power of the mind to ‘command' the body to let and sleep on a plane. There are loads of apps, or one can seek out a certified hypnotherapist in their area to customize a session (preferred).” If you're the sort who really struggles with in-flight sleep, this might be your answer.

Choose your flights—and your seat—wisely
There are certain decisions you can make ahead of your travel date to improve your flight sleep odds. “Pro Tip: no one is stepping over you for the window seat,” says Dr. Benjamin Smarr, a National Institutes of Health Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Berkeley and Reverie sleep advisory board member. “Invest in longer flights rather than those with connections to maximize the length of your sleep.” Doctor's orders.