Jet Lag
It's 3am in the morning and I'm wide awake in a hotel room in Tokyo, having slept for about five hours. My head is pounding because I haven't had coffee in 30 hours. I'm fixing myself an espresso and getting out my Nexus 7 for some reading. Emily suggested I read A Visit From The Goon Squad so that's first up on my vacation reading list.
I struggle with jet lag. Whenever I talk to someone who travels frequently to Asia or some other far off destination, I always ask them how they deal with it. Most tell me drugs, which I refuse to take. I don't want to go there.
When our family traveled to Australia a few years ago, I was so knocked out by the jet lag that I felt physically ill for the first couple days of our trip. I think I'm in much better shape on this trip, but it's still a struggle for me to get out of my circadian rhythm and into another one.
The jet lag advice I have taken is to sleep as much on airplanes as possible. That makes sense to me but I don't sleep well on planes. I got about four hours on the thirteen hour flight from NYC to Tokyo. The Gotham Gal and the girls barely slept on the plane and I think they are doing better with the jet lag than I am. So I am questioning that advice a bit right now.
So, what do all of you in the AVC community have to advise me on this one? I'd like to get better at it because I love traveling to far flung parts of the world and plan to do a lot more of it in the coming years.
