{"id":2179,"date":"2013-01-08T03:16:11","date_gmt":"2013-01-07T18:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2013-01-08\/2179"},"modified":"2013-01-08T03:16:11","modified_gmt":"2013-01-07T18:16:11","slug":"the-mysteries-of-jetlag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2013-01-08\/2179","title":{"rendered":"The Mysteries of Jetlag"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n

So we're back in Kyoto after two wonderful weeks visiting my folks in snowy<\/a> Ohio. The return<\/span> flight thankfully omitted the drama of my trip there<\/a>\nand of my wife's<\/a>. Airline-induced drama aside, both trips were\nmore comfortable than the normal transpacific trip for me.<\/p>\n\n

Owing to a lot of business trips in the 90s, I've made the transpacific\ncrossing about 150 times (back then mostly in business class, but at the\nprices today there's no way I'd spend my own money on that for myself). This time two\nthings helped to really make the trip better:<\/p>\n\n

  1. I sprung the extra $130\/seat for United's “Economy Plus” seating, which offers 3" (7.5cm) of extra leg room\n(seats at a 34<\/span>" pitch instead of 31"), a huge<\/span> extra margin for my 6'4" height.<\/p><\/li>\n\n

  2. And for the first time, I took the sleep-aid Ambien<\/a> in the middle of the\n11-hour (going) and 13-hour (returning) flights, blessing myself with a rare<\/span> five\nor six hours of sleep on each flight. (FWIW, I took the<\/span> Japanese version,\n \u30de\u30a4\u30b9\u30ea\u30fc<\/a>,<\/span>\n which more or less transliterates to something that brings the English words “my sleep” to mind.)<\/p><\/li><\/ol>\n\n

    I combined this with my general practice to avoid all alcohol before, during, and after the flight (it might make the flight feel nicer,\n but I think<\/span> it makes jetlag worse).<\/p>\n\n

    All-in-all everything seemed to conspire for greatness this time, as I arrived<\/span> at home in Kyoto at about 9pm last night feeling so great\nthat I got<\/span> much of my unpacking done right away, and went to bed ready for sleep at 1am.<\/p>\n\n

    Unsurprising to someone used to jet lag, I awoke<\/span> at 3am. I had a<\/span> half pill of Ambien ready and took it, and soon drifted back to sleep\nexpecting to get up wide eyed and ready to go by 8am or 9am.<\/p>\n\n

    A groggy me awoke at 2pm.<\/p>\n\n

    I was deeply groggy all day, and went to bed at midnight, taking a full<\/span> Ambien just to be sure, but I was<\/span> suddenly well awake.\n After an hour of lying in bed trying to still my mind and body, I took another<\/span> half pill, and remained quite definitely awake.\n Eventually I thought<\/span> to try one of those “relaxing ambient sounds” iPhone apps, which gave me something to listen to, but\n apparently didn't help me fall asleep because here I am<\/span> now at 3am writing this post.<\/p>\n\n

    I have to be up at 6:30.<\/p>\n\n

    I usually have pretty bad trouble with jetlag, though less after the\nreturn trip to Japan, but I really<\/span> thought I had<\/span> it beat this time. I\nguess<\/span> I'll be a zombie<\/span> all day tomorrow\n(well, “today”, I guess<\/span>) and try to\nget to sleep at an early but not-unreasonable time.<\/p>\n\n

    I was hoping to get cracking on one of the many potential blog posts\nI've been wanting to write, as well as on the\nhundreds<\/span> of messages accumulated in my mailbox and blog comment\nqueue, but all that will have to wait for\n a more<\/span> lucid Jeffery, should one ever appear.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    So we're back in Kyoto after two wonderful weeks visiting my folks in snowy Ohio. The return flight thankfully omitted the drama of my trip there and of my wife's. Airline-induced drama aside, both trips were more comfortable than the normal transpacific trip for me.<\/p>

    Owing to a lot of business trips in the 90s, I've made the transpacific crossing about 150 times (back then mostly in business class, but at the prices today there's no way I'd spend my own money on that for myself). This time two things helped to really make the trip better:<\/p>

    I sprung the [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2179"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2179\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}