My point is both melatonin and 5HTP are marketed as sleep aids, yet neither should be taken without understanding how they work so you can make an educated decision on the risk of taking them.

Same goes for prescription sleeping pills that don’t actually help you fall asleep, but instead block your short term memory.

But hey if you want to take supplements that mess with your brain chemistry so that you can tolerate crappy schedules, then by all means do.

By that logic every time you get tired you are messing with your brain chemistry because you are secreting melatonin internally. Taking oral melatonin is just a way to kickstart that for the express purpose of reorienting your circadian rhythm.

Coffee is arguably more addictive than heroin, just far less deadly.

Well I enjoy (crave) and seek out a coffee almost every morning and I do yearn for one often when I can't have one, but I have not ever contemplated committing a crime to obtain one, or spent my whole day wondering how/when I would get one. A lot of these items are also psychosomatic whereas you believe they will work, so they mostly do. If I'm tired, I can drink a cup of coffee and fall asleep within minutes.

Bottom line with International, if you can't/won't avail yourself to a nice 2.5hr nap enroute, you will be miserable in short order. If you are able to get that nap, and another after landing and then motivate yourself to get up and use the gym or see the sights, eat dinner and then get a full nights sleep, the return trip home seems like a long day. Your tired that night and you wake the first day off well rested. The schedules are easy to adjust to, but you have to plan your sleep or you will be otherwise staring at the ceiling all night in Europe and then dead tired all the way home as well.

Another domestic guy here going to the 330. Is the large 26’’ bag a necessity or can I get away with using my standard 22’’ bag?

I did 15 years of international with the 22 inch and a clip on bag. Used it constantly on 6 day trips and up to 12 day trips. Never understood the guys who needed to drag a small Condo with them. I also brought 1 shirt per leg as I can’t stand reusing them.

12 days in a 22” bag sounds a little tough. Especially with a new shirt for each leg. Unless……one pair of underwear for whole trip?

I'm sticking with my 22" bag for now. I'm going to be based in NYC and it seems like a majority of the trips are 3 days. I figure if my bag worked for 4-5 day domestic trips, it will work for a 3 day international trip. If they start doing more 6 day trips I might consider the bigger bag.

Repurposing your work shoes or your workout shoes can get you down to a 22” bag. In other words, go with the 26.”

AKA...the white New Balance shoes work well for every occasion!

What about the black New Balance shoes? It seems they are even more versatile as they are a common uniform item and they should double as a workout shoe, right?