Does Garmin’s Jet Lag Advisor Really Work?
Garmin smartwatches can tell you a lot about your body with real-time updates of heart rate, stress, calories, respiration and more. The higher up you go in their line the more data you get and recently Garmin has introduced a Jet Lag Advisor that takes that information to help with every travelers headache.
I tried Garmin’s jet lag advisor for several months and over 50 time zones to find out if it really works. You can watch the video above and read the recap below.
What Jet Lag Advisor Does
For Garmin watches that do support jet lag advisor (Forerunners 265, 965, Fenix series, and others) when you have a trip coming up go into the Garmin Connect app on your phone – it’s the only way to enter your trip data – go into training and planning, and then Jet Lag Advisor. Once there you can enter in any number of flights you have coming up. Note that if you’re taking a long flight but don’t cross any time zones, Jet Lag Advisor won’t be used and will let you know (although you can still enable it anyway).
For flights that do cross time zones though, you enter in your departure and destination cities – Jet Lag Advisor tells you to ignore any layovers.
Before Your Flight
One the details are in Garmin Connect it will sync with your watch in the upcoming trip in the Jet Lag Advisor glance. A few days out Jet Lag Advisor will begin alerting you with recommendations on moving your body clock closer to your destination time. These notifications can be toggled on or off as you like with recommendations on when to avoid or seek light, take a nap, use caffeine, get some exercise or take melatonin as some examples.
When you’re actually traveling you’ll still get prompts but even more. A neat feature is the timeline both on your watch and in the Garmin Connect App that shows good times to eat or take a nap and at the beginning of each windows you’ll get a notification on your watch. It’s fun having the recommendations but when you’re traveling they often are just that – recommendations you can’t practically use at certain times when you’re actually in transit. Avoiding light when you’re waiting for your next flight on a layover wouldn’t be feasible for example. During these times I would put the Jet Lag Advisor as something fun rather than an actual coach you can use to adjust your body clock. But where it can actually help that I noticed, it when you finally arrive.
Kicking Jet Lag Upon Arrival
Once you’re at your destination Jet Lag Advisor reminds you of when you should sleep or not. It’s that common traveler dilemma when you get somewhere new and are tired but don’t know when you should sleep without completely throwing off your body clock. Jet Lag Advisor gives good guidance on getting your clock adjusted and coaches you during the first few days.
I use the Jet Lag Advisor most closely after I’ve arrived somewhere and will avoid napping or force myself to get outside or keep the lights on based on the watches recommendations. I’ve found Jet Lag Advisor does help reduce the amount of time you feel jet lagged. You’ll still feel jet lag of course but having a coach that keeps you on the schedule can help and if that doesn’t work, peanuts might be another jet lag cure.
