Overcoming a jet lag
It is 4 in the morning and I am wide awake, sitting in front of my laptop wondering what to do next. It is a different fact that I was rolling in the bed for the last two hours making my plans for the week ahead. First item on that plan is to take another day off from work. I couldn't force myself to sleep any longer and so, here I am trying to find out what exactly is wrong with this planet that I haven't been able to sleep at all. I think I have a headache as well.
It is quite appropriate that I should be surfing for articles on how to overcome a jet lag. I think they should have these in the flights than some stupid magazines that tell you why South Africa is where you should be spending your next vacation or how some ex-senator is trying to do his part to save this planet from the ill-effects of global warming. It is good that Air France has a few diagrams of CDG so that you know what is going to hit you when you land in Paris. To be honest, most terminals in CDG looked like a garage to me. And to think that the designers of Bangalore's International Airport were pulled up recently for some bad design choices for the interior...take a look at CDG and you will conclude that your cellar is more navigable. Oh cmon, Bangalore has to be better than CDG. We can definitely do a better job. I still don't understand why they need to enforce security checks on passengers taking connections. I havent left any airport on my way to Paris and neither did I take a smoke on one of those clouds when we were in the air. They don't trust the Amricans....that should be it.
Anyways, it surprises me as to why they wouldn't have any information on flights on how to overcome a jet lag. I read through every piece of paper available to me...including Pittsburgh uncle's book (read further to know more about Pittsburgh uncle). The wierd part is, I never felt this bad during my first few days in Austin. In fact, based on what I am experiencing right now, I can safely conclude that I never experienced a jet lag. I thought it might be a good idea to understand what went right then and what went wrong now. There are quite a lot of articles on the Internet that talk about ways of beating a lag, but most of them say the same thing. So let's take one such article and find out the real reasons. You have to open that article for this post to make sense.
1) Live on a schedule - No problems here. I have a lot of order in my life these days. Plus, I am single. So it helps. Circadian rhythms couldn't have been any better.
2) Get enough sleep - No compromise on sleep. Work can wait, people can wait, the party can wait but not sleep - that has been my policy for the last 6 months. I have realized that there isn't anything out there that is worth losing your sleep on. Of course, the amount of sleep one needs is a different matter and subjective as well. Some need 8 hours, I can do with 4 on most days.
3) Fly by day, arrive at night - It was 10pm when I landed in Austin and 12:30am when I arrived in Bangalore :P Reason #1
4) Drink plenty of fluids during the flight - I think I did okay on this both ways. The fact that I took the aisle seats on all my flights (16 totally) made it that much easier to keep frequenting the restroom ;-)
5) Avoid alcohol - During my flight to Austin, I had this Tam girl from Bangalore beside me. She was heading to Atlanta to do her MS in Computer Science. We got talking about her MS, my job, her college in Bangalore etc etc. I missed the drinks trolley thrice during all this talk. I started off with some orange juice (yuck) and the flight attendant kept re-filling it every time and never bothered to ask me if I wanted to change. Bad attendant, interesting conversation ! However on my way to Bangalore, I had an elderly person (Pittsburgh uncle, seemed Tam as well) sitting beside me who for some reason seemed very unfriendly. He never spoke to me for the first half of the trip despite me making every effort to "break the ice". How depressing ! Naturally I found company in alcohol. I had beer over Spiderman 3, Shrek the third and Dhoom 2. Reason #2.
6) Pretend you are not on the plane - That is the funniest thing I have ever heard. Total bull. Has anybody been able to do this ? This hasnt worked for anybody who I have known. Not even over one timezone, forget anything more than 2.
7) Be quiet and relax - I don't think anybody can get excited during a 8 hour flight unless you have George Bush on the plane and Osama as the pilot. Amrican bhai's, no hard feelings here.
8) Do as Romans do - I was reading each and every street name, exits, inter-state names, state highway names (and what not) on my way to Bradford from the airport in Austin. I had a Google map in my hand and the cab driver took a different route. At one point I saw an exit to Houston and really freaked out. But hey, he was smarter than Google. Saved me some cash ! On my way back, dad came to pick me up. No tensions. Even the customs officer seemed very friendly. I didnt need to read the street names nor listen to the local language. My dad had hired a cab and the cab driver decided that he was not going to respect the lane markers on the road. Again, this is home turf. Do as the Romans do. I didnt complain. Just watched him flout each and every traffic rule as we drove home.
9) Socialize - Reason #3. You see that Tam girl did give me quite an opportunity to socialize as opposed to Pittsburgh uncle. She was really cool. And she spoke Kannada. The fact that I broke the ice by helping her stuff her luggage into the storage above our seats did seem to help. This is where I did better than the French male - flight attendant...ahem. He made a big fuss about her bag and how big it was and why she made a big mistake by not checking it. Loser ! She has a problem, don't you see it ? She made a mistake agreed, but let us solve her problem for God's sake and get this flight moving. Don't you want her to take your flights again ? You should be fired for what you did.
Now about the uncle from Pittsburgh - for some strange reason, he started reading a book when we were 15 minutes from landing in namma bengaluru. And when we landed, he looked at the page he was at and grumbled about the gazillion other pages he had to read inorder to finish the book. He had the whole flight to read the book and perhaps finish it too. Strangely, he kept staring at his television which was switched off most of the time. I still remember giving him a smile when I saw him for the first time on that flight and what I got back was an empty stare, perhaps inspecting me to find out what was wrong with me that I smiled at a stranger. Glad I didn't give him a hug. How could I possibly socialize with somebody like that ?
10) Don't nap - Uh oh. Reason #4. Pinged boss just now to tell him I was going to take another day off :-(
11) Soak up some sunshine - Reason #5. Stayed at home for most part of yesterday.
12) Make a date with the sun - Woke up for lunch yesterday and slept again. No sun, no fun. Plus, this doesn't apply in my case.
13) Exercise - I lifted weights - yeah my luggage !
14) Think before you react - All meetings put off by 48 hours.
15) Reverse the process - Dude, I am home already :-)
Postscript: Bipasha Basu is hot. I had never seen her movies.
It is quite appropriate that I should be surfing for articles on how to overcome a jet lag. I think they should have these in the flights than some stupid magazines that tell you why South Africa is where you should be spending your next vacation or how some ex-senator is trying to do his part to save this planet from the ill-effects of global warming. It is good that Air France has a few diagrams of CDG so that you know what is going to hit you when you land in Paris. To be honest, most terminals in CDG looked like a garage to me. And to think that the designers of Bangalore's International Airport were pulled up recently for some bad design choices for the interior...take a look at CDG and you will conclude that your cellar is more navigable. Oh cmon, Bangalore has to be better than CDG. We can definitely do a better job. I still don't understand why they need to enforce security checks on passengers taking connections. I havent left any airport on my way to Paris and neither did I take a smoke on one of those clouds when we were in the air. They don't trust the Amricans....that should be it.
Anyways, it surprises me as to why they wouldn't have any information on flights on how to overcome a jet lag. I read through every piece of paper available to me...including Pittsburgh uncle's book (read further to know more about Pittsburgh uncle). The wierd part is, I never felt this bad during my first few days in Austin. In fact, based on what I am experiencing right now, I can safely conclude that I never experienced a jet lag. I thought it might be a good idea to understand what went right then and what went wrong now. There are quite a lot of articles on the Internet that talk about ways of beating a lag, but most of them say the same thing. So let's take one such article and find out the real reasons. You have to open that article for this post to make sense.
1) Live on a schedule - No problems here. I have a lot of order in my life these days. Plus, I am single. So it helps. Circadian rhythms couldn't have been any better.
2) Get enough sleep - No compromise on sleep. Work can wait, people can wait, the party can wait but not sleep - that has been my policy for the last 6 months. I have realized that there isn't anything out there that is worth losing your sleep on. Of course, the amount of sleep one needs is a different matter and subjective as well. Some need 8 hours, I can do with 4 on most days.
3) Fly by day, arrive at night - It was 10pm when I landed in Austin and 12:30am when I arrived in Bangalore :P Reason #1
4) Drink plenty of fluids during the flight - I think I did okay on this both ways. The fact that I took the aisle seats on all my flights (16 totally) made it that much easier to keep frequenting the restroom ;-)
5) Avoid alcohol - During my flight to Austin, I had this Tam girl from Bangalore beside me. She was heading to Atlanta to do her MS in Computer Science. We got talking about her MS, my job, her college in Bangalore etc etc. I missed the drinks trolley thrice during all this talk. I started off with some orange juice (yuck) and the flight attendant kept re-filling it every time and never bothered to ask me if I wanted to change. Bad attendant, interesting conversation ! However on my way to Bangalore, I had an elderly person (Pittsburgh uncle, seemed Tam as well) sitting beside me who for some reason seemed very unfriendly. He never spoke to me for the first half of the trip despite me making every effort to "break the ice". How depressing ! Naturally I found company in alcohol. I had beer over Spiderman 3, Shrek the third and Dhoom 2. Reason #2.
6) Pretend you are not on the plane - That is the funniest thing I have ever heard. Total bull. Has anybody been able to do this ? This hasnt worked for anybody who I have known. Not even over one timezone, forget anything more than 2.
7) Be quiet and relax - I don't think anybody can get excited during a 8 hour flight unless you have George Bush on the plane and Osama as the pilot. Amrican bhai's, no hard feelings here.
8) Do as Romans do - I was reading each and every street name, exits, inter-state names, state highway names (and what not) on my way to Bradford from the airport in Austin. I had a Google map in my hand and the cab driver took a different route. At one point I saw an exit to Houston and really freaked out. But hey, he was smarter than Google. Saved me some cash ! On my way back, dad came to pick me up. No tensions. Even the customs officer seemed very friendly. I didnt need to read the street names nor listen to the local language. My dad had hired a cab and the cab driver decided that he was not going to respect the lane markers on the road. Again, this is home turf. Do as the Romans do. I didnt complain. Just watched him flout each and every traffic rule as we drove home.
9) Socialize - Reason #3. You see that Tam girl did give me quite an opportunity to socialize as opposed to Pittsburgh uncle. She was really cool. And she spoke Kannada. The fact that I broke the ice by helping her stuff her luggage into the storage above our seats did seem to help. This is where I did better than the French male - flight attendant...ahem. He made a big fuss about her bag and how big it was and why she made a big mistake by not checking it. Loser ! She has a problem, don't you see it ? She made a mistake agreed, but let us solve her problem for God's sake and get this flight moving. Don't you want her to take your flights again ? You should be fired for what you did.
Now about the uncle from Pittsburgh - for some strange reason, he started reading a book when we were 15 minutes from landing in namma bengaluru. And when we landed, he looked at the page he was at and grumbled about the gazillion other pages he had to read inorder to finish the book. He had the whole flight to read the book and perhaps finish it too. Strangely, he kept staring at his television which was switched off most of the time. I still remember giving him a smile when I saw him for the first time on that flight and what I got back was an empty stare, perhaps inspecting me to find out what was wrong with me that I smiled at a stranger. Glad I didn't give him a hug. How could I possibly socialize with somebody like that ?
10) Don't nap - Uh oh. Reason #4. Pinged boss just now to tell him I was going to take another day off :-(
11) Soak up some sunshine - Reason #5. Stayed at home for most part of yesterday.
12) Make a date with the sun - Woke up for lunch yesterday and slept again. No sun, no fun. Plus, this doesn't apply in my case.
13) Exercise - I lifted weights - yeah my luggage !
14) Think before you react - All meetings put off by 48 hours.
15) Reverse the process - Dude, I am home already :-)
Postscript: Bipasha Basu is hot. I had never seen her movies.