How do you or can you even sleep on a plane?

I have never been able to sleep on a flight. And the longest flight for me was from L.A.X to London Gatwick.

One time I was flying business class from Madrid to Miami and I was surrounded by a group of women, one of them couldn’t get a seat with her friends, she was seated in the back, I gave up my seat just so she enjoy the flight back with her girlfriends.

A couple hours into the flight she came back to my seat with a plate of cheese and crackers for me.

I've had a horrible time sleeping on flights from the east coast US to Italy. Something about the anticipation keeping my brain buzzing.

The first time was the worst, while also being wonderful in a few ways, as I pretty much like flying. Our plane that we took from Los Angeles arrived very late at JFK and we missed the connection after running down the airport byways. Big clump of harried passengers in front of the desk, much agita'. We got sent to Milan, and our luggage failed to transfer, so it arrived in Rome, our destination, without us. We got to Milan (another story, my passport was expired!) and had a five hour wait to catch an Alitalia flight to Rome. Couldn't sleep in the Malpensa airport either. Got to Rome with a train from Fiumicino airport and then to our hotel area by subway, followed by walking down a main street (cobblestone sidewalks) with a month's worth of luggage, and then uphill to the albergo. We tossed our suitcases and went down to that big street and had our first food in Italy. I forget what I ordered, but remember what the people next to us ate - a very large bowl of piping hot spaghetti to which they added a hefty amount of parmigiano and unbelievable amount of butter...
and then we went back to the albergo and sleep.

That was 36 hours awake (that includes getting up and out our front door in Los Angeles and waiting for that first flight..)

I've only slept once in a plane, namely when I from Washington to Munich [upgraded to business class with "miles & more" points].

On all the other flights (longer flights to and from the US),I try to get a seat in one of the last side-rows ... because there are only two seats in a row. Thus, I can get out of the seat without disturbing snoring co-passengers, have small-talks with the assistants on duty in the pantry ...

I can sleep most anywhere - buses, planes, airports. I once fell asleep on a hard-backed kitchen chair while sitting on the balcony of an apartment I lived in years ago. I still marvel that I didn't fall off the chair.

I'm not as fast to drop off as hamburgboy's brother was - he'd be asleep in minutes in the back of the car while the rest of the family was in a church or at an auction or anywhere else he didn't want to be.

I sleep in any place that I am if I am ready for sleep.
Slept on trains, buses, planes, ferry boats, and in places such as Union Station in Chicago and outdoors someplace in Santa Fe. Slept in chairs, on wooden floors and on tile floors, I have even fallen asleep standing up...which can be quite annoying when I then fall over.


Sleep is not the problem. Waking up without stiffness or pressed body parts can be.

Haven't done much flying. Haven't ever been able to fall asleep on a plane despite taking red eye flights home from California. Had a sleeping seatmate who was an actual, no metaphor, pain in the neck when she fell asleep with her head on my arthritic shoulder. I had to wake her; she was not happy, but I told her to rest on her friend sitting on her other side. Had a sleeping "floormate". enormous German shepherd service dog who lay on my feet San Francisco to Kennedy. I enjoyed the dog's snoring, kind of massage therapy.
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I find it very hard to sleep on an aircraft. I'd have to take something and even then I'd be anxious about snoring and too uncomfortabletosleep well.

I've sat next to people who have pretty much slept for a whole 14 hour leg though....waking to be fed and hydrated and curling right back up again....like dormice.

This is a bummer when you live in Oz beacause it normally takes more than 24 hours to get where you want to go....counting the time in a transit lounge.

It's ok if you're just flying to Singapore etc......but the long hauls are awful.

Oddly, I can snooze quite well in tiny planes....maybe because they are generally work related flights and I'm exhausted.

What Bruce Willis says about it in a Die hard film is truly excellent advice, it works to calm me even at home... Curl your toes on the carpet.

Those of you who can sleep on a plane are lucky. My question is how do you deal with sleep after the travel. It takes me so long to get over the jet lag, by the time I start feeling normal again it's time to return from whence I came.