This first posting from Russia was written on September 30, when I had access to a computer but not to Internet.
It’s hard to get much done when your day doesn’t begin until 4:00 pm. Until that time I feel like I’m in a morning fog. I get up for whatever breakfast Slava prepares, have a couple of cups of coffee, attempt some small project until I become confused, and then feeling defeated, go back to bed for a nap. I’ve been in Russia for a week, and still my body comes alive not at the time I get up, but around 6:00 am EST, or 4:00 pm local time. In the late afternoon I feel gloriously alive and full of awareness. I spend the early part of the day doing not much more than counting the hours to the time that brings this transformation.
There’s a 10-hour time zone difference between Washington, D.C. and Ekaterinburg, Russia, nearly reversing day and night. At home I’m an Early Bird; here I’m a Night Owl.
Actually I’m close to fitting in to local ways. The work day starts later here. Slava’s office gets populated around 10:00 am, and is still busy around 8:00 pm. Here’s a new theory of mine: the human body was programmed many millennia ago to something like Greenwich Mean Time – but rather than GMT, it’s actually the body clock of our earliest ancestors in Africa, along the same meridian as GMT. Those who live to the west of that line tend to be Early Birds; to the east the people are Night Owls.
Okay, okay… that theory has zero credibility. Many people have internal clocks that adjust quickly to different places on the globe. Slava is a Night Owl in the U.S. as well as in Russia. And in a world of survival of the fittest, people like me who are hard to change ought to be close to dying out.
People like me did all right when travel was by covered wagon or by slow boats. It’s the Jet Age that’s doing us in.
I had another theory which I’ve tested this time on how to deal with jet lag. Simply put, it’s abdominal breathing, The misery of economy class on a jet plane is not just the cramped positions of the arms, legs, spine, and neck. It’s also the shallow chest breathing restriction of sitting upright. On this trip I spent more frequent flyer miles than I had on my account (borrowing from Slava to make up the difference) in order to get a Business Elite reclining seat. Ah, yes. After getting a half night’s sleep during the nine-hour flight (some of the time being taken up with other pleasures of Elite travel) I bounced off the plane in fairly good condition. And then I crashed.
Sticking to my new theory that abdominal breathing is important in dealing with jet lag, I dispensed with the usual recommendation to tough it out by forcing yourself to get through the day. I also gave up on the sensible recommendation to dose yourself with sunlight. Instead, I gave myself long hours of abdominal breathing, flat on my back. Remarkably, sleeping during the day didn’t keep me from sleeping at night. I was in bed, sick with jet lag, for 14 – 16 hours those first days. When I forced myself to get up I felt like I was moving in molasses – until that magic hour that corresponded to my normal hour of getting up at home. Then I was perfectly fine.
I’m writing this blog when I’m not at my best. I should probably wait until after 4:00 pm to send it, but, what the hey, it’ll only be seen by family and friends, right?
Thursday, October 4, 2007
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1 comment:
I hate jet lag! When we go to Switz. it takes two days for this wimp to recover. Going the other way is no problem.Must be because we pickup time. On the other hand i can get jet lag just going to Pittsburgh, USA not Russia
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