Jetlag

After staying for about a week in Europe, the 6-hour difference — KL’s GMT +8 vs Geneva/Paris/Amsterdam’s GMT +2 — has thrown my body completely into a loop.

By the time I got back home, it took me about the same number of days to recover completely. I’ve been sleeping for the past week for hours on end, every chance that I get, even in the daytime. And in my dreams, I’m still in Amsterdam, running around to catch the right tram to get to our next destination!

I’ve yet to find a sure-fire, drug-free way of coping with jetlag. The only thing that ever worked for me were:

1 – getting as much sleep as possible in the plane, which is not the easiest thing to do in a cramped economy seat;

2 – following the routine of my intended destination immediately upon arrival, e.g. if I’m arriving in the daytime, I carry on with the rest of the day and avoid going to sleep until nighttime has fallen there; and

3 – staying up later — or going to bed earlier, whichever’s applicable — a few days before the intended departure, in preparation for the time difference.

These three things always work for me, at least when it comes to adjusting to the time zone of my intended destination.

But by the time I get back home, it’s an entirely different story. My body then leaves me no choice but pay back all the sleep debt that I’ve accumulated during the entire trip. As a matter of fact, my body makes me sleep just a little bit more, probably to compensate for all the walking and running around that I do when I’m overseas, in an effort to get everything that I intended to do within the short period of time that I’m there.

Before leaving for Europe, I told Lola that we’ll walk like we’ve never walked before. And boy, we sure did! Now please don’t get me wrong here. I love walking in Europe, especially in spring, because the weather is much colder there so I hardly ever sweat. It’s such a departure from the weather in Southeast Asia, where it can get so humid so early in the day that, if you go walking or jogging just after sunrise, you find your shirt already soaked less than 30 minutes into your routine.

So yeah, I’m back to normal. No more walking around like a zombie during the day, no more yawning like a lion during meetings, at long last.

So if I’m back to ‘normal’, what am I doing up at 4 am? Uhh… I fell asleep with the twins without having dinner and found myself fully awake and very hungry at 2 am, so I made myself a sandwich with some cheese that we brought back from Amsterdam…then the twins wanted some milk and needed a change of diapers…then I realised that it’s been days since I last posted anything in my blog so I started typing until I churned out something coherent… and still, sleep remains elusive.

So yeah, this blog isn’t called ‘Sleepless in KL’ for nothing ;)