- Do lunges & pushups every few hours to prevent butt from getting sore
- Workout/Run the day before or morning. Don't oversleep, lean on having less sleep before the flight (6-7 hours)
- Don't bother doing any work. Find that book you've wanted to read for some time, read that.
- Pick an aisle or window seat, middle seat sucks
When you get to your destination, do the following:
- Take a 1 hour nap in the middle of the day. This resets jetlag so you can sleep on a normal schedule
If a chemical method is your thing, I've heard good things about motion sickness medication, but I've never used it.
The occasional SFO-NYC in economy where my upgrade doesn't clear is torture. I can't fathom doing my usual 10h weekly flight in economy seats. I fly 150k miles a year, on about 80 flights or so. Pretty much all in business or first. Paid by myself. It's really not as expensive as people think… I spend maybe $15,000 annually on flights. Optimizing judiciously is key.
Maybe frequent flyers get used to it or know how to prepare better for long fights, but I'll be making sure I have a layover from now on.