Just stayed in a hotel that had a Dohm sounds machine. I’d never seen one before, but it did a great job (along with ear plugs) of drowning out traffic and hallway noise during the day. It has a fan or something that makes a steady, dull white noise. I ordered one as soon as I got up from my nap. Also got a smaller Rohm unit that works well too. I ordered the “Uno” that seems to be more cheaply made than the version the hotel had, but still works for home. I’ve tried using my phone to play sleep sounds in the past, but the looping/skipping often wakes me up. With Dohm, it’s just one long, consistent noise.

Lol yeah I had one of those when my kids were infants. Just blank, continuous, white noise works like a champ!

How often do you all show up to a hotel after a red eye and the hotel room isn’t ready? And if this is a common enough problem, are you legacy or ulcc? I’ve always blamed it on the hotel, but curious if it’s a booking issue on the airlines end.

Rare (legacy). Probably not an airline issue if you're flying a line (or somebody else's line) since those are pre-booked well in advance and crew hotels know they need to accommodate proper check-in times. For IROPS or reserve positioning, yeah there might be issues due to the last-minute nature... but even that will be common only if you put up with it, enough 117 and fatigue calls and the company will get the message.

While not red eyes per se, I’ve had days end at 8 AM before and it’s never been an issue.

I've twice been given a room with someone in it on red-eyes. Nothing like getting in at 7am after flying all night and walking in on someone and having to deal with all that entails.

Kind of like landing in an occupied runway.

Which is why I always, ALWAYS, deadbolt my door. Yeah, it’s a safety thing also, but really it saves the awkwardness and inconvenience of having someone barge in and turn on the light when I’m sleeping.

Yup.
.....................

I leave it open, nuts out, enter at your own risk.

Tired of housekeepers knocking and coming in? Put on those meaty clackers on display and they will double check that check out sheet before knocking

Over 8 years doing red-eyes. Once I didn't have a hotel room upon check in. New guy behind the desk. "Check in is after 3pm, do you want to talk to the manager?". Yeah, sounds like a plan, got the complementary free full buffet at a full service Sonesta, and the keys to my room 15 m!inutes later. Working for Spirit.Not really a thing to worry about.
Yes, deadbolt. Walked out of the shower with (just) a towel over my head to find three maids making my bed about 20 years ago, deadbolt everything since.

Sounds like an opening of a pornhub video.

I found that chewing gum during the last hour of the flight greatly diminishes any sleepiness. Also was effective for my 100-mile road commute home at 4am.

Heavy Metal. If you're still nodding off, German or Russian Heavy Metal.

A generous cuppa joe at TOD will usually get me through the arrival and drive home.

For those who take melatonin, one thing I can't find the answer to is, how soon after you wake up can you take a dose?

For example, land on the west coast at midnight, and operate a red-eye that following night. If you wake up at 8-9am, can you pop a melatonin by noon or 1 and hope to sleep until showtime, or is that unrealistic? In theory after a nights sleep, you'd have a 4ish hour window of being awake before trying for another long sleep period.

I think it’s unrealistic, for myself. It’s not a medical grade sleeping pill, so for me it can be a help to help my body relax to sleep but it won’t put me to sleep or keep my asleep, it isn’t like Ambien

Melatonin is more of a gentle nudge than a sleeping pill.

That’s a great way to describe it 👍🏻

Melatonin-“Hey, maybe you can get some rest, if you like?”

Ambien- “Get your punk butt to sleep and stay down until I say it’s time to get up!”

never had ambien but this made me LOL

Neither have I. But my mom took them. Unless you wanted to have an intelligent conversation with her until 10 hours after she took it, forget about it.

by that metric, I’m clearly overdosing on ambien daily because I’m wholly incapable of an intelligent conversation.

That stuff was so bizarre. I’d talk to my mom before she went to bed, “hey, I’m going to go to XYZ’s house after school to work on a group project if that’s ok?”

”of course, have fun!”

the next day I’d be at XYZ’s house and get a frantic phone call because she had 0 recollection of the conversation even though she seemed totally lucid at the time.

Thank god she quit taking it before too long.

We had a stew get up in the middle of the night and cut her own hair on a layover. She was not happy

my mother also to take it. Two things stood out.

1. disappearing food. She’d wake up and binge eat the crap out all the food. And what she didn’t eat she’d feed to the dogs. So it was common for whole loafs of bread or blocks of cheese to go missing.

2. my favorite, the fugue shopping. She get up in the middle of the night and buy the most random crap on Amazon, have no memory of it, then wonder why she was getting random deliveries of metal detectors/youth sized violins/leather working tools.

I think it depends on how tired you are going into your trip, or what your sleep debt is. I’ve had days like you described, 7 hours of sleep, 5 hours awake, then another 6 or 7 hours of sleep, but I was tired going into it and needed the extra sleep anyway.

I think sleep hygiene is one of the most important factors in feeling normal during redeyes. If you’re all caught up on sleep going in (I use a sleep tracking app on Apple Watch called AutoSleep that uses sleep rings kind of like the activity tracker), you can miss a sleep period and still feel ok.

Anyone getting paid a red eye override? Seems some extra money may be a fair compensation for the loss of sleep and health risks associated…

SWA and JBLU do

Plus the added risk of something going wrong. I would feel like errors are more common at 3am over Oklahoma than they are at 10am.

Delta has an adjustment to the duty rig for overnight hours but not a straight override.

In addition to melatonin anyone experimented with using blue light blocking glasses in cockpit and on the way to the hotel? I’ve read the blue light is what can hinder the bodies natural melatonin production. Wondering if a blue light blocking lenses with an amber tint could help?

I've been using them if I'm planning on going to bed at a normal bed time. I feel like it reduces eye strain also. I've been using them for a few months now. Although, mine are clear. I think prescription glasses can have blue light filtering added. I wonder if they can do that with contacts?

I've also turned on Night Shift or what ever the phone / tablets/ computers call their blue light reduction. I seems to make the screen less white and more brown.

I'm trying to become more careful about drinking water closer to bed time especially on back side of the clock flying.

Apparently, being awake during your normal sleep period can mess with the hormones that suppress the urge to pee while you sleep. So, being hydrated can lead to getting up several times to pee when you want to sleep.

I went out on medical in Spring 2017 but prior to that the FAA would allow "Sonata (zaleplon) with certain restrictions. I used it for early wakeup's since I was a "night owl". I'll paste a description below, I did sometimes wakeup with a vengeance after about 4 hours but overall it was better than nothing. I have heard that melatonin only works via a "placebo" effect, I don't know if that's still considered true or not.

Sonata (zaleplon): It reduces the average time it takes to fall asleep by 10 minutes. Unfortunately, it is metabolized quickly and may wear off within 4 hours. This may make it attractive for awakenings that occur in the night, however.

OK, I got curious and checked the FAA's Guide for AME's. It says 12 hours from taking zaleplon to flying. Didn't used to be that way. It's still the most lenient of all prescription sleep aids thou. I'll link the website with the waiting times for all prescription sleep aids:

https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org...arm/sleepaids/

When i started international long haul flying i quit drinking coffee. I can almost sleep on command. Being old and tired all the time helps.

Poor caffeine planning cost me a sort nap :/

Live and learn.

Two 1 mg Melatonin and two Advil, and I sleep for 8 hours.

??? I use advil if I'm sore... don't think it makes me sleepy.

I’m not sure if it’s been said: less is more with melatonin. I never take more the 3mg.

If you wear a cell phone holster and NB kicks, advil is required before all sleeps.

It does me. Give it a try sometime.

I often workout immediately before flying, and sometimes take advil after I workout. Hopefully it doesn't make me sleepy. It is FAA approved for use during flight duty.