Jet Lag? Finally Found Out the Cure

This is the second day of my trip. Just some random note about this long day, in several different entries.

Jet Lag? Finally Found Out the Cure

I am a typical jet lag person. Every time I fly west bound from Shanghai, I experienced serious jet lag.

Jet Lag Patterns

My Most Serious Jet Lag Ever

I followed the advice from my friends and books not to sleep at day time no matter how sleepy I am, and wait until night to go to bed. According to the advice, this is the only way to get rid of jet lag. This theory is widely accepted, and practices. I followed the instruction every time – to stay awake for the first day, but still just suffer so much from it

This time, I felt really sleepy as soon as I get out of the airplane. I drove to San Jose, had Vietnamese noodle and went to hotel. This time, the first I did was to go to bed and slept. At around 9:00 AM Shanghai time (5:00 PM San Jose), I wake up, had dinner, and get back to bed to sleep again.

The next morning, I wake up (I didn’t wake up in the middle – I am the sleep guy anyway). What a magic! For the whole day, I didn’t feel anything – no jet lag, and I am still refreshed for the whole day – I even didn’t noticed that I am in another time zone.

Finally, I found out my cure to jet lag – to sleep as much as possible, instead of staying awake for the first day. It may also work for other guys who likes sleep.

A conclusion: do not aways listen to what others say. Try it yourself. It is a shame that I just found it out after so many times of international travel.

Jet Lag Patterns

Jet lag!I hate jet lag.

The pattern for my jet lag is clear and repeartable. Let me keep a record of my experience these days to make sure the next time I travel, I understand which part of the time is the most inefficient and try to avoid important meeting during these time slots.

The First Day

I don’t feel the jet lag the firts day. After UA858 arrives in the morning, the excitement of travel (and obviously combined with the excitement to be able to move after sitting there for 12 hours) makes the first half day wonderful. The lunch will be as exciting as normal, and I will be happy to eat something after being hungry the whole morning. In the after (SFO time), I am still feeling great until around 4:00 PM. I started to feel tired and 5:00 PM is the peak that I would quit from anything to fall asleep. I will wake up 5-8 times at night.

The Second Day

In the morning, I will feel great, and wake up early – it is quite unusual for me. The morning will be very productive and from 1:30 PM, my head starts to be heavy and hard to open the eyes. It will continue to till about 6:00 PM, and legs and feet do not feel comfortable. The night is not enjoyable at all, and I need to go back to hotel to sleep ASAP.

I may wake up 3 times at night.

The Third Day

The third day is better. I start to feel bad when I have to wake up – this is what I call the normal behavior for me. Then the morning continue to be great and feel a little bit tired in the afternoon from 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM. That is. The night is good, and the evening will be wonderful.

I believe the jet lag will appear slowly from the fourth day…

That is me. How about you?

Sleep on Airplane

Late sleeping last night took effect today. I fall asleep as soon as I sat down at a 10F seat of MU flight. This is the first time in my life that I didn’t enjoy a flight – I didn’t know when the flight took off and when it landed. All I know is, I sat down, slept, woke up and went home. Amazing! It seems I should stay late every time before a travel thus the boring time during the trip will be easily skipped, as if it hadn’t existed. Oh. There was even a book at Amazon to teach people to Sleep on Airplanes. LOL.

Munich’s Glass

Wendy sent back some pictures from Munich.

munich-airport-glasses.jpg

Munich Airport. Photographer: Wendy

If Munich is made of glass, then Shanghai must be made of people.

shanghai-crowded.people-people.square.jpg

Stairs at People’s Square Station in Shanghai. © Jian Shuo Wang

My Most Serious Jet Lag Ever

I am sufering from the most serious jet lag I have ever experienced. I didn’t sleep well on the plane. As you you can, I was so concentrated to take the pictures of the ocean and the island.

I am feeling very tired and sleepy every afternoon. Now after staying here for two days,, the most tired time range moves from afternoon to morning – this indicates my body clock is trying to fit the new schedule and the jet lags becomes better.

The other symptom is anorexia. I am not in the mood to eat any food around the clock. When it combines with the Amerian-style food, it becomes worse – the food here is meat fried with meat.

It is a good sign that I felt hungry tonight. It was raining outside with lightning. I called PizzaHut to deliver the Pizza for us. I did struggle a lot to locate the nearest PizzaHut store. Finally, I had my dinner at around 10:00 PM local time.

I also spent about 10 minutes to create a page on Places to Visit on Microsoft Campus. Take a look at the tour I had on campus.