Have you experienced jet lag? It is not a friend of mine!
We recently made the cross-ocean journey from Delhi to the United States (for the process of renewing our visas) and wowzas ... it knocked the energy outta me!
We recently made the cross-ocean journey from Delhi to the United States (for the process of renewing our visas) and wowzas ... it knocked the energy outta me!
From the all-knowing internet ::
Jet lag is a temporary condition. Signs of it appear one to two days after air travel across at least two time zones. How severe it is and how long it lasts depends on the number of time zones you cross. It is also related to the direction of travel. Flying east tends to be harder to adjust to than flying west.
Estimates are that it takes one day per time zone for your body clock to adjust to the local time.
Crossing more than six time zones can require even more time for your body to adapt. Some people are able to adjust more quickly than others to rapid shifts in time zones.
Estimates are that it takes one day per time zone for your body clock to adjust to the local time.
Crossing more than six time zones can require even more time for your body to adapt. Some people are able to adjust more quickly than others to rapid shifts in time zones.
Yikes. It takes one day per time zone for your body clock to adjust to local time.
Which means that flying from Delhi, India to the midwest in the United States gives us NINE days of jet lag recovery time.
When we left, we flew out from India at midnight on a Thursday night. We landed in Chicago at 4:30 am (waited on the plane for 30 minutes since the customs folks don't start work until 5am) .... then boarded another plane and ending up somewhere in Kansas at 9:30 am on Friday morning. If that doesn't screw with your internal clock, nothing will!
Add Daylight Savings Time into the fun of a family of five trying to adjust to severe jet lag and you end up with several dazed and confused folks.
The rest of you all in the United States love Fall Back time because you get an extra hour of sleep. For us though, it meant that we have an extra hour to suffer through trying to keep everyone awake just a "smidge" longer.
If you haven't experienced jet lag before, here's a short recap on what we experienced ::
- The littles falling asleep -- HARD -- at 4pm local time.
- The littles waking up -- WIDE AWAKE -- at 2am local time.
- Mama and Daddy being overtired, a bit short on patience and just plain exhausted.
- The whole family wants to eat pancakes, bacon and toast at 8:00 pm, and craves spaghetti and garlic bread at 5:30 am.
- There is alot of "shhhhhhhhhhh!!!!" going on in the hotel room since everyone is functioning on 100% energy levels between the hours of 2am and 6am, when the rest of the guests are trying to sleep.
- When we go downstairs for continental breakfast at 7:30am, we've already eaten "breakfast" in the hotel room and two snacks.
- Lots of tears.
- Somewhere in the middle of the late morning (11:30am or so) we start to see yawns, and shoulders start to slump and chattering voices start to wane.
There are not alot of cures or solutions for jet lag. Many people suggest melatonin or other homeopathic or herbal remedies. Many agree that exercise and exposure to the sunlight is the best option.
(Updating this post to let you know that we finally slept "through the night" on Night NINE of our travels to the United States, just like the experts said!)
