Certainly, some flights don’t warrant sleeping aids—such as when you’re taking a short trip or traveling west against a time difference, says Aneesa Das, M.D., a sleep medicine specialist at the Ohio State University. “Alcohol will allow you to fall asleep more quickly, however most people will then experience very disrupted and fragmented sleep quality,” says Thomas Kilkenny, M.D., director of the Institute of Sleep Medicine at Staten Island University Hospital.