In which Seanan has the worst jet lag ever.

[seanan_mcguire]

So I went to Eastercon recently. Hooray! If you don't know, Eastercon is the British national science fiction convention, held every Easter weekend. This year, I was one of their guests of honor, which meant hey, I got to go to England! Hooray x2!

Only, see...I get the jet lag. I get the jet lag badly. I always have. I wrote an entire romantic comedy about jet lag (Chasing St. Margaret, not coming any time soon to a bookstore near you). I am not a girl who switches time zones quickly or easily. Normally, I deal with this by giving myself time before the convention to adjust. Sadly, this time, that wasn't an option, as I was a Special Guest at Emerald City Comic Con the weekend before. My schedule looked like this:

Monday morning, fly from Seattle back to San Francisco.
Tuesday morning, get my hair done.
Wednesday morning, fly to England.
Thursday morning, land in England.
Friday morning, the con begins.

...not ideal. And maybe it would have been okay if I had been able to sleep on the plane (I usually can), but this time the guy next to me wouldn't stop snoring, and I had a cough from the cleaning products at the airport, and it was no good. I was awake all the way to London, reading and fussing and trying not to be the worst person anyone had ever shared a plane with.

My handler picked me up at the airport and delivered me to the hotel, where I proceeded not to sleep. And not to sleep. And finally to sleep for twelve hours, which resulted in my sleeping through a panel. When I finally woke up, I went looking for her to apologize, and had literally upward of thirty people laugh and tell me they'd missed me.

Things not to do to people with anxiety: remind them thirty times that they are a failure.

I had a full-blown panic attack, complete with inability to breathe, and stopped sleeping again, since sleeping now equated directly to fucking up. HOORAY. I didn't sleep until I got to Teddy and Tom's after the con, where I crashed for thirteen hours, was up for three, and then napped. I never did get quite onto UK time. I've been home for over a week, and I'm barely returning to normal.

Jet lag sucks.

Comments

[danceswithwaves.livejournal.com]

Have you tried taking melatonin? I just found out (I was obviously being very dense before) that you could buy melatonin pills over the counter, so I've been trying them occasionally when I need to fall asleep early-ish and I just can't for some reason -- they seem to be working remarkably well. There's not a whole lot of research on melatonin yet, but it's the hormone that your body makes to help you fall asleep, so taking it artificially can help you fall asleep when you want to. There also doesn't seem to be many, if any, side effects (and some side effects seem to be good, like boosting the immune system), though, again, there's not a whole lot of long-term research.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[westrider.livejournal.com]

I've had good results with melatonin as well. It's the only thing that's ever really significantly helped with my (more or less) lifelong insomnia, to the point where my doctor thinks the problem is simply that my brain can't make it properly.

Do use it sparingly, as it's one of the things where the body can come to rely on the supplement, and reduce its own supply, so it can cause nasty rebound insomnia if overused.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[westrider.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it depends on what the issue is. I've been taking it for years now, with no noticeable side effects, tho I did have to ramp the dosage up eventually. That comment was more intended for anyone else who might be reading this and want to use it occasionally. IDK if I'm making any sense here. It's been a long week and it's not over yet :P

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[archangelbeth]

I strongly recommend trying melatonin ONLY if you have a week free to see if it works. Tried it with my kid, and it caused major depression. We took her off it, and the depression lifted after a few days. We tried it again, for ONE DAY, and she melted down the next day for another WEEK. And this was the lowest dosage we could find! No more melatonin here!

Anything that meddles with brain chemistry should be tried only if one is A: really really desperate, or B: in possession of time to deal with the thing backfiring.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

I tried, and it didn't work for me. Sadly.