Jet lag plan: London to Tokyo

London to Tokyo

The clock moves whether or not you are ready for it. This works out by how much, and what a bedtime walked an hour a night would look like on the way there or once you arrive.

Your usual bedtime

Your usual wake time

Travelling on

Shifting

Moving each night by

Tokyo runs 8 hours ahead of London. To arrive already keeping Tokyo hours, your bedtime has to move 8 hours earlier — from 10:00 pm to 2:00 pm, on your own clock at home. That is 8 nights, so the table below starts 8 nights before you fly.

Bedtime and wake time for each night of the plan, and sunset that evening and sunrise the next morning in Tokyo, all on the clock you are on now.
Night	Bed	Up	Moved	Sunset there on this clock	Sunrise there on this clock
Night 1	9:00 pm	5:30 am	−1h	9:43 am	9:27 pm
Night 2	8:00 pm	4:30 am	−2h	9:42 am	9:28 pm
Night 3	7:00 pm	3:30 am	−3h	9:40 am	9:29 pm
Night 4	6:00 pm	2:30 am	−4h	9:39 am	9:30 pm
Night 5	5:00 pm	1:30 am	−5h	9:37 am	9:30 pm
Night 6	4:00 pm	12:30 am	−6h	9:36 am	9:31 pm
Night 7	3:00 pm	11:30 pm	−7h	9:34 am	9:32 pm
Night 8	2:00 pm	10:30 pm	−8h	9:33 am	9:33 pm

The gap, and why it is two numbers

In January, Tokyo runs 9 hours ahead of London. In July it runs 8 hours ahead. London puts its clocks forward for part of the year and Tokyo does not, so a single figure would be wrong for months at a time. The planner above works from the difference on the date in its field.

What that asks of a bedtime

Taking the shorter way round the dial, the move is 9 hours earlier in January and 8 hours earlier in July. At the planner's usual step of an hour a night, that is 9 nights of shifting in January and 8 in July, either before you fly or after you land.

This is clock arithmetic and nothing else. It does not know how you sleep on aeroplanes, it makes no claim about how quickly anybody adjusts, and an hour a night is a step size rather than a finding. Shorten the step in the planner if a smaller one suits you.

Going back

The return leg has its own page: Tokyo to London.

Once you are there

With the clocks settled, the ordinary question comes back: what time to go to bed for the alarm you have set. That is the wake-time pages, which count in cycles rather than in zones.