October_30th's Journal: Resetting my sleep/wake cycle

Uh. My sleep/wake cycle is still messed up.

After the last (Sunday-Monday) nightshift at the synchrotron, I've been trying to reset my circadian rhythm to a more normal one, but it's still not working right. Yesterday evening I went to bed at 8 pm only to wake up at 1 am after which I couldn't get any sleep until 5 am. Let's just say that I haven't been feeling very awake at work today...

Do you travel a lot? How do you deal with jet lag?

RoF says...

[tuxette]

...eat and drink yourself into a coma at bedtime ;-)

Re:

[October_30th]

Yes. RoF would like that, wouldn't it. ;)

As a a matter of fact, I am giving RoF some wine (Goats Do Roam 2006) this evening to celebrate how I finished my part of the first draft proposal to the EU 7th Framework Program and submitted it to the coordinator of the consortium well before the deadline. :)

Re-synchronizing, 1 day per hour

[Ashtead]

I usually try to get into the time-zone of the place I am. I've found it takes about one day per hour time difference to get back into sync, when going west. Going east I seem to get into some kind of 48-hour cycle, with alternating early and late days that lasts for a similar number of days.

It also depends on the time of year. Northern summers which is all light is the most difficult, as it gets hard to sleep and syncronize when it is daylight almost all the time. Even winter, when there are short days,

Re:

[October_30th]

I read somewhere that exercise and light should help with the transition, so I've been getting up reasonably early and biked to work. The problem is that there isn't that much light that would tell my brain that it's daytime. As I get up in the morning and bike to work it's dark. At noon, when there's some light outside, I'm working indoors. And when it's time to go back home, it's dark again.

I think I'll just have to sleep later in the morning.