You know flying California-UK is something I do on average once a year? (Got to do it three times in the next 12 months. Yummy.)
Coping strategy ...?
Flying UK-to-west-coast is easy; just make sure you stay awake until 10pm the day you arrive, then crash, and you'll wake up on local time.
But flying west-coast-to-UK is harsh. So harsh that my recovery schedule looks like:
Day 1: arrive in destination time zone. Get home, nap for 3 hours, wake up for rest of day. Cognitive state: braiiiiinnnnsss ....
Day 2: Run the washing machine, eat, watch mindless cartoons on TV or read something light. Do not under any circumstances attempt to deal with the backlog of business mail or other correspondence unless it's a screaming emergency (the car's been towed or they're coming to arrest me or something). Cognitive state: moron, tending towards idiot.
Day 3: Perform triage on the backlog of correspondence, splitting into separate piles. File the bank statements and utility bills, set aside anything that requires focus until another day. Maybe go food shopping. Graduate back to reading normal fiction. Filled with a restless energy, go swimming or something to burn it off. Do not under any circumstances surrender to the impulse to try and work productively. Cognitive state: IQ takes a 20 point penalty hit.
Day 4: Beginning to resume normal functioning but may still need afternoon naps at random intervals.
(Do not ask me about the time I flew home from Boston on a Thursday -- thank you, Air France, for rescheduling my earlier-in-the-week flight -- and had to do a GoH slot 500 miles away 36 hours later. I was a zombie.)
TL:DR; west-to-east jetlag really sucks, and west coast to UK is among the worst. Oh, and doing convention GoH slots on consecutive weekends in different countries (or states) is something I now have an official personal ban on, after making the same horrible mistake twice in 2014 (never gonna do that thing again). You are not alone.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2015-04-23 01:03 pm (UTC)Coping strategy ...?
Flying UK-to-west-coast is easy; just make sure you stay awake until 10pm the day you arrive, then crash, and you'll wake up on local time.
But flying west-coast-to-UK is harsh. So harsh that my recovery schedule looks like:
Day 1: arrive in destination time zone. Get home, nap for 3 hours, wake up for rest of day. Cognitive state: braiiiiinnnnsss ....
Day 2: Run the washing machine, eat, watch mindless cartoons on TV or read something light. Do not under any circumstances attempt to deal with the backlog of business mail or other correspondence unless it's a screaming emergency (the car's been towed or they're coming to arrest me or something). Cognitive state: moron, tending towards idiot.
Day 3: Perform triage on the backlog of correspondence, splitting into separate piles. File the bank statements and utility bills, set aside anything that requires focus until another day. Maybe go food shopping. Graduate back to reading normal fiction. Filled with a restless energy, go swimming or something to burn it off. Do not under any circumstances surrender to the impulse to try and work productively. Cognitive state: IQ takes a 20 point penalty hit.
Day 4: Beginning to resume normal functioning but may still need afternoon naps at random intervals.
(Do not ask me about the time I flew home from Boston on a Thursday -- thank you, Air France, for rescheduling my earlier-in-the-week flight -- and had to do a GoH slot 500 miles away 36 hours later. I was a zombie.)
TL:DR; west-to-east jetlag really sucks, and west coast to UK is among the worst. Oh, and doing convention GoH slots on consecutive weekends in different countries (or states) is something I now have an official personal ban on, after making the same horrible mistake twice in 2014 (never gonna do that thing again). You are not alone.