I Think This Means I'm Getting Old
We got back from two weeks in Japan and Taiwan last weekend and the jet lag is killing me.
I used to need one, maybe two days to de-jet-lag, and that was it. I was fifteen the last time I went to Taiwan and that time the 13-hour flip was a piece of cake. I’ve done trips to Hawaii (5 hours) and Europe (7 hours) more recently and the jet lag was short-lived.
This time, it took about a whole week to make the 14-hour adjustment to Japan time (though it was a gradual and uneventful transition—going east is easier) and now, six days after our return from Taiwan, I find myself up at 2:30am blogging and nursing a mug of chamomile tea. I’d gone to bed at around 9pm because I wasn’t feeling well and apparently my body decided five hours of sleep was enough.
This is also the first time I’m experiencing full-body jet lag, and not just sleep disruption. I thought I’d maybe come down with some kind of virus, but Wiki says jet lag can cause all the following symptoms:
- Loss of appetite, nausea, digestive problems
- Headache, sinus irritation
- Fatigue, irregular sleep patterns, insomnia
- Disorientation, grogginess, irritability
- Mild depression
and I’ve got everything on that list except disorientation and depression.
If you go by the one day per time zone rule of thumb, I’ve got eight more days of this to go. Joy.
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