Aisle seat

Do you know how long it takes to fly from San Francisco to Hong Kong? 14 hours. It's a long trip for sure.

It was a red-eye flight. At midnight, we were served dinner, which includes choices of chicken, fish or pasta and complementary wine.

After dinner, I sat in my seat and fell asleep for 4 hours. Slowly I was awaken by the numbing of my lower back and tail bone. I got up, went to the restroom, then naturally, I stretched in the aisle next to my seat. 

Here are the poses/stretches I found very useful for long flights. Believe me, it makes a world of a difference.

The first four poses help stretch the legs. Do these poses on both sides and try to hold for 5 breaths.

• Warrior I & II without the arms. Just use a hand to hold on to the seat back so you are stable. 
• Modified dancer's pose: with one hand holding on to a seat back for balance, raise one leg back toward the tailbone, and hold that foot with the hand. Lightly lean the body forward and the back leg may lean backward.
• Put that foot forward and place it on the other thigh while slightly bending the other thigh. Do the other side.
• Lunge pose on both sides.
• Sit in the seat, lift your feet off the floor and slowly rotate them.

The following poses help stretch the neck, shoulders and upper body.

• Slowly rolling the hard from right to left, then left to right. Repeat 5 times.
• Slowly look from left to right then right to left. Repeat 5 times.
• Shoulder rolls front to back, back to front. Repeat 5 times.
• Seated twist. While sitting in the seat, twist from your core to the right, hold. Then twist to the left.

After stretching I fell back to sleep. Two hours later I woke up again and I performed similar stretches. So on and so forth. 

Throughout the flight, I drank a lot of water and move around a lot. Additional hint, use an eye mask and ear plus to help sleeping on flight.

When I got to HK, my body didn't feel fatigue, and it was amazing. Additionally, the flight went amazingly fast, so it was tolerable.