For a world traveler, there are many obstacles that a person can face, losing their passport, language barriers, and cultural misunderstandings, but the one that every traveler will experience and hate to fight through is the dreaded jet lag. Those days of wandering around like a zombie as you try to catch up to the time zone that you find yourself in are the worst. You will find yourself sleeping in the middle of the day, and missing out on the experiences you could be having just because you can’t get your head straight.
Many people have come up with various ways to minimize the impact that jet lag will have on you, such as staying awake the whole way there wile avoiding an stimulants, to having various catnaps to on the trip to try to make the adjustment. You can try taking melatonin right before getting on the plane and crash for the whole flight to feel refreshed, or when you arrive, you could keep yourself busy to trick your mind into thinking that it has been there for its whole life, and quickly fall into that time zones groove. These have varying degrees of success that are different for every person who attempts each strategy. I even find that what worked for me once does not work at all the next time I attempt it. But thanks to Covid, I have come up with a new way to get over jet lag that has actually been very effective every time I have used it as a method, work.
I know, you are calling me crazy. You go traveling to get away from work, and why would you want to bring this with you when you go and see what the world has to offer. But if given this rare chance to battle jet lag in this way, you should try it because it really works.
At the end of last school year, my school was on-line due to the pandemic, and the school announced that it would end the year that way. This gave me the opportunity to leave the country early, and do my work from anywhere in the world where I wanted. I just needed to make sure that I was doing my work in the same time zone that my work was in. Over the weekend, I flew to America, and during the night I spent my time finishing up the school year. I was staying with my in-laws so I had to adjust my clock a bit to finish the day with school instead of starting with it. When the week was over, making the next slip in time was no struggle at all, and it took only a minor adjustment to get over jet lag.
Because of the omicron variant, the school I am working at right now is starting the second semester on-line. It is only a two week adjustment, but it allowed me to extend my stay in the United States. I still have to work this week, and it will take place in the middle of the night, but I am in the process of the same adjustment with time. I worked late last night and slept away most of the morning. Over the weekend, I will make the jump over to Jordan, and when I get there, I will have to hop into that time fame and work right away. I won’t have time to think about jet lag, and I will already have made half of the adjustment this week. I believe that I will be able to get into the groove rather quickly.
It might sound silly, but it is a great way to get over this greatest of inconveniences for any traveler. Of course, this is not something that will be made available at all time because most people are not allowed to continue doing their job from anywhere in the world. But this is one of the small advantages of the Covid pandemic that we are given that chance from time to time. It still involves making some adjustments, but they are smaller and I find that they are easier to get over. I am in the first part of the process right now, and will continue the next step in the following week, but I am expecting the minimal effect from this long travel around the world this time around.
John Collings 