How to Sleep on a Plane, a Train, or in an Unfamiliar Hotel Room

On your first night in a strange room, half of your brain may stay on guard. In a 2016 US sleep-lab study at Brown University, one hemisphere of young, healthy volunteers slept more lightly on their first night and reacted faster to unusual sounds, which may help explain why a hotel bed rarely gives you your best night.¹

How to sleep on a plane, a train or in a hotel room comes down to sleeping at the right time on the destination’s clock, shutting out light and noise, and keeping your body comfortable and moving. Six steps cover it:

1. Sleep during the destination’s night
2. Block light and noise
3. Choose your seat and recline for sleep
4. Go easy on alcohol, and skip sleeping pills on board
5. Move about once an hour while awake
6. Make the hotel room feel familiar

The 2012 international travel advice from the World Health Organization (WHO) says that sleeping pills should not normally be taken during a flight, because they may keep you still for longer and so raise the risk of a blood clot in the leg.²

Should you sleep on a plane to avoid jet lag?

Sleep on a plane through the hours that fall at night at your destination, and once you land, sleep only in the local night. That is the advice of Britain’s National Health Service (NHS), which also suggests drinking plenty of water and walking around the cabin during the flight.³

Each hour you sleep in the destination’s night is an hour already spent on the new schedule, while a long sleep in its daytime pulls you the other way. For the days before and after the flight, see the guide to timing light, darkness and melatonin to beat jet lag.

On the flight below, the last two-thirds fall in the destination’s night, so that is the stretch to sleep through.

1. BoardingPhone set to destination time: 6 p.m. there
2. First hoursEvening at the destination: eat, stay awake, walk
3. Middle to endNight at the destination: mask, earplugs, recline, sleep
4. Landing, 6 a.m.Morning: daylight and local time from the start

A daytime flight that lands in the evening suits a short nap on board and an early night at the hotel instead.

How to sleep on a plane, in six steps

These steps follow public-health travel advice, and much of their supporting research is small.

1. Sleep during the destination’s night

Before you board, work out which hours of the flight fall in the destination’s night, and aim to sleep through them. The 2026 travel chapter from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) builds its jet lag advice around shifting sleep toward the destination’s schedule.⁴

2. Block light and noise

Wear an eye mask and earplugs if they help you sleep, the NHS jet lag page suggests. The best test of an eye mask was run in people’s own bedrooms. In a 2023 trial at Cardiff University in the UK, funded by a European Research Council grant, 94 adults aged 18 to 35 slept a week in a light-blocking eye mask and a week with their eyes uncovered; with the mask, they did better the next day on a memory test and an alertness task, though they did not sleep longer.⁵

The earplug evidence comes mostly from hospitals. A 2021 review of 35 studies in intensive care patients linked eye masks, earplugs or both to better sleep, but a ward is a very different place from a cabin.⁶ Try both at home first, so your first night in a mask is not also the night of a long flight.

3. Choose your seat and recline for sleep

The best seat for sleeping on a plane is a trade-off between comfort and movement. A window seat gives you a wall to lean on and no neighbor climbing past, while an aisle seat makes it easier to get up and walk. The CDC notes that an aisle seat might lower the risk of a blood clot, and that in one study window-seat travelers had about twice the risk of those on the aisle.⁷

Recline whenever the seat allows. In a 2018 Australian lab study, six healthy adults napped for four hours in a seat set upright, reclined or flat; sitting upright, they slept a little under a third less than lying flat and lost most of their dream (REM) sleep. The authors suggest that holding the head comfortably while upright is hard, and that the posture keeps the body more aroused.⁸ With six sleepers, nobody can say how big the effect would be in a cabin.

With no extra clot risk, a window seat reclined as far as it goes makes sense for sleep. With risk factors (see the box below), the aisle may be the safer pick. A neck pillow or a rolled jacket can stop your head dropping forward.

4. Go easy on alcohol, and skip sleeping pills on board

Alcohol may speed sleep onset, but it makes sleep less restful and wakes you to use the toilet, the WHO guidance says, so it advises drinking in moderation, if at all, before and during a flight.² Keep coffee and tea to your usual amount and away from the hours you plan to sleep; the guide to how many hours before bed to stop caffeine explains the timing.

5. Move about once an hour while awake

Get up and walk, or flex your ankles and calves in your seat, about once an hour while you are awake. The NHS advice on clots says not to sit still for long periods and to move about every hour or so.⁹ When you wake, walk to the toilet or the galley before settling again.

6. Make the hotel room feel familiar

Bring some cues of home into an unfamiliar room and ask for a quiet one. This step rests on reasoning from the first-night study below; nobody has tested it.

Before and during your next long trip

• Set your phone to destination time when you board
• Plan to sleep through the hours of the destination night
• Pack an eye mask and earplugs you have tried at home
• Pick a window to sleep, or an aisle if you need to move more
• Recline the seat and support your head
• Keep alcohol low and caffeine away from planned sleep
• Walk or flex your calves about once an hour while awake
• At the hotel, ask for a quiet room and keep your usual routine

Is it safe to take a sleeping pill on a flight?

Sleeping pills are best kept for after you land, unless a doctor has specifically told you to take one on board. The WHO’s 2012 travel guidance says short-acting sleeping pills may help with jet lag on medical advice, but should not normally be taken during the flight, because they may increase immobility and so the risk of deep vein thrombosis (DVT), a clot in a deep vein, usually in the leg.² A pill taken soon after takeoff on an overnight flight can leave you folded in one position for most of the night, the stillness that guidance warns about.

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine’s 2007 US practice parameters grade a short course of sleeping pills for jet-lag insomnia as an option, the lowest of their grades, and advise caution because side effects, memory loss among them, have been reported.¹⁰

Alcohol meets a second problem in the air. Cabin air at cruising height is thinner than at sea level, so the blood carries less oxygen. In a 2024 lab study by the German Aerospace Center, which funded it, 40 healthy adults slept four hours either in a normal sleep lab or in a chamber set to cabin pressure, once after drinking alcohol and once without. After alcohol at cabin pressure, blood oxygen during sleep fell to about 85 percent, below the 90 percent level doctors treat as low, and deep sleep was shorter than on the sleep-lab nights.¹¹ The order of the nights was balanced across volunteers rather than randomized. The volunteers were healthy and drank a moderate amount, so older passengers and people with heart or lung disease could be affected more; we found no study of alcohol and sleeping pills taken together on board.

Myth

A drink or two is the easiest way to sleep on a long flight.

Fact

Alcohol can speed sleep onset but makes sleep less restful, WHO advice says, and in a lab study at cabin pressure, sleepers' blood oxygen fell further after drinking.

Melatonin raises different questions. The trials pooled in a 2002 Cochrane review gave it near the target bedtime on the destination’s clock, and that is where it eased jet lag; the reviewers caution that a dose taken early in the day can bring on sleepiness and slow adjustment.¹² The NHS takes the opposite view and does not recommend melatonin tablets for jet lag, saying there is not enough evidence that they work.³ US stores sell it as a dietary supplement. The US National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health advises medical supervision for people with epilepsy and for those on blood thinners.¹³ In the UK, melatonin is available only on prescription, according to the NHS.¹⁴ In the EU, the European Medicines Agency states that the licensed melatonin medicine needs a prescription.¹⁵ Rules elsewhere differ, so look up your own country’s and talk to a doctor or pharmacist before packing any; the jet lag guide linked above covers the timing evidence.

Why can’t I sleep the first night in a hotel?

Poor sleep on the first night in a new place is common enough that sleep scientists call it the first-night effect, and a 2016 study in the journal Current Biology suggests one reason: one half of the brain sleeps more lightly and stays alert to its surroundings, like a night watch.¹

The study

Limited evidence

A night watch in one half of the brain: Tamaki and colleagues, 2016

Masako Tamaki and colleagues at Brown University recorded the brain activity of 35 volunteers on two lab nights about a week apart. On the first night, deep sleep was shallower in one network of the left hemisphere than the right; unusual beeps picked up by the left hemisphere caused more arousals, and the volunteers woke and responded faster. The imbalance was not seen in the later session.¹

This was a laboratory experimentlaboratory experiment: An experiment run under conditions the researchers set up and control, often with students doing short tasks. Control makes cause and effect easier to pin down, but the tasks are simpler than real life, so results do not always carry over to work or home.Full entry in the glossary with young volunteers, and only the first sleep cycle of each night was measured, so it cannot say how much a hotel stay costs a traveler in their 50s. Still, it suggests why a door slamming down the corridor wakes you more easily than it would at home.

1. First night, left half: deep sleep was shallower in one brain network, which reacted more to unusual sounds and woke the sleeper faster
2. First night, right half: slept more deeply than the left half
3. A later night: about a week later, in the same lab, the imbalance was gone

A schematic of a 2016 lab study of 35 young, healthy adults, measured in the first sleep cycle; not measured values.

A bad first night on a three-day trip is the expected pattern. Book the demanding meeting for the second day when you can, use earplugs against sudden noises, and keep your home routine: the same bedtime, your own pillowcase, a room away from the lift and the ice machine. The general advice on a quiet, cool, dark bedroom and other habits for better sleep applies on the road too.

Sleeping on a train or overnight bus

The same rules apply on a train or bus, with one difference: a sleeper berth lets you lie flat, which gave the most dream sleep in the small seat study above.⁸ The clot risk does not depend on the vehicle. A 2007 WHO project found that passengers on planes, trains, buses and cars are at higher risk when they stay seated and still for more than four hours.¹⁶ In a seat, time your sleep, block light and noise, recline as far as you can, and walk through the carriage or at stops.

Blood clots, breathlessness and sleep that won’t settle: when to get help

The NHS says jet lag usually eases within a few days.³ A long trip sitting still carries a more serious risk: a blood clot. The WHO’s 2007 findings put the risk at roughly double after travel of four hours or more, though the chance stays low.¹⁶

Some people carry more risk.

• Now: leg pain or swelling with shortness of breath or chest pain, during or after a trip, means phoning your local emergency number straight away (999 in the UK) and not driving yourself, NHS advice says.⁹
• Soon: throbbing pain or swelling in one leg, or red or darkened skin around a painful area, after a trip needs an urgent appointment with a doctor (in the UK, a GP or NHS 111), the NHS says.⁹ The CDC notes that most travel-related clots appear within the first two weeks.⁷
• Routine: if your sleep is still poor weeks after you are home, read about how insomnia is classified and what tends to keep it going and raise it with a doctor. If you take a sleep medicine regularly, or melatonin or a sleeping pill is on your mind for a future trip, bring that up with a doctor or pharmacist before you book.

The bottom line

Travel sleep goes best when it is timed to the destination’s night, shielded from light and noise, and broken up by short walks. Before your next long trip, set your phone to destination time, pack an eye mask and earplugs you have tried at home, and pick a seat that suits your clot risk as well as your comfort.