'Jet Lag', the buzzword in long distance air travel, was always something alien to me. I always ‘enjoyed’ people talking about their jet lag experiences to brag about their long distance air travels abroad. It is always somewhat amusing; especially when someone even after more than a month of their travel talks about how they are still experiencing the jet lag! And sometimes, this even kind of gets annoying. It is in the end just a physiological condition that may or may not affect one as a result of their long distance travels. It is annoying to use jet lag as a tool to brag about the travel. I would rather happily hear people bragging about the travel itself, directly.
Thus, as I amused myself with people talking about their jet lag; I wondered how it is actually to experience it. Despite of my few long distance air travels, I never experienced it until recently.
I am a person who can more easily modify her sleeping patterns if necessary. No, I cannot remain sleepless whole night, and then work the whole next day. But, if necessary, and as long as I get a few good hours of sleep sometime, I can easily alter my sleeping patterns. This fact, accompanied with the fact that I can fall asleep easily while travelling, lead to me not experiencing jet lag every time. I definitely do feel tired; I am no superhuman after all. But this tiredness is a natural one after a long journey and is manageable. And about food, I can eat almost all the time. As long as I can handle the altered bedtime, the altered eating cycle is no problem.
When the first time I came to Slovenia from India, I was not actually adjusting to any time difference. Back then in India, I had this habit of going to bed almost towards the morning, after 3 am. Therefore, my sleeping pattern was basically adjusted from before. During flight I was comfortably sleeping until I saw the horizon playing with colors and turning magnificently blue. When I reached Slovenia in the morning, I had the energy to happily go through the whole day. I simply got adjusted. The clock ticking in me did not complain. And the later travels were similarly smooth too.
Going to USA this summer for a vacation was about to bring a different experience. The time difference is of six hours, and I feared of experiencing certain uneasiness from this travel. But no, it was just fine. Maybe, I thought, because all my travels had been either during day or overnight, I was able to cope better. I either slept or did not. Somehow, I never reached my destination urging to go to bed when it is broad daylight there, or getting irritated trying to fall asleep as my sleep is miles away from me. But this record was about to change.
While flying back to Europe, the flight would give me only 2 hours of night. However, I was not bothered. I was relying on sleeping in the flight for some time, like usual. But. Well, everything changed.
Generally, the sound and the uncomfortable position do not prevent me from falling asleep. As I watched the sun set over the horizon, the dinner was served (on a side note, it was not good). I finished the movie I was watching; and then it was time for sleeping. I tried to make myself comfortable, but somehow something was wrong. Whatever. I found the best possible position for me and tried to sleep. I was sleepy, and tired. But I was just not really sleeping as I always do. It was only a resting phase, something between being asleep or awake. And the engine made such loud sound!! It was already annoying before. But now, as I was trying to sleep, it was intolerable. I had never experienced loud sound like this before, even when my seat was close to the wings. It was simply horrible. And there went my sleep..
No doubt, I reached Munich all tired. There were four hours of waiting time. With the terrible sound now gone, I hoped to rest. But again there, it was not to happen. For some unknown reason we did not get the boarding pass of the connecting flight at D.C. And, our flight being four hours later was not displayed, leaving us clueless about the gate we should approach for transit. Next was getting the boarding pass. It was a huge line. And when it was finally our turn, well our ticket seemed invalid with no apparent reason. The staff was completely clueless as our registration was just not in their system, and all else seemed okay. Thus, after an hour of wondering and discussing, we finally got the boarding pass. I was so tired and sleepy, barely being able to keep my eyes open. But I must remain ‘awake’ and take care of my hand baggage and purse. Well. Whatever. I grabbed my purse, and soon was sleeping on my hand baggage.
By the time I reached Ljubljana, I literally had no patience and energy left in me. I barely managed to eat some food. And then headed straight to bed falling fast asleep. It was not tiredness or lack of sleep. It was just something else. Something like an annoying bug in my head. Still, I was under the illusion that I just required sleep, and the next morning would be normal.
The illusion started breaking when I woke in middle of the sleep. My mind was telling: sleep, you have work tomorrow morning. But my body answered: oh, I am nicely rested, it is now time to wake up and start the day. And all this conversation was happening in the middle of the night! Next two three hours went away just there lying on bed, staring and thinking. Forcing myself to fall asleep. But with no success. I was so bored. And finally I think this boredom made me fall asleep again.
And after all these hours of sleeping, resting etc etc, when I woke up next morning, my head was heavy. I was still sleepy! It got worse. All I wanted in the middle of the day was some time to sleep. Okay, today in evening, no internet and checking backlog of mails/messages etc, but resting. However as I reached home in afternoon I was again fine. Unable to force myself to sleep, I was awake till way past midnight on that evening when I actually had planned to go to bed early. And next morning, the sleepy head was back again. Urrgh…
For the next few days it was like this. Driving me crazy.
I experienced jet lag. And so much I did. It was enough.
And I will never understand how people announce that they had jet lag with a hint of pride! Even when this hint of pride is supposedly for their trip to some far away foreign land.
