Ahhhhhh...... back again.....
My son and I just returned from yet another visit to SE Asia. I do so love travelling to this part of the world.
This time we were gone for just short of 6 weeks, travelling mainly through Thailand with a short hop up into Laos. And it was, well, awesome. It usually is. Ha ha, I almost said always, but that wouldn't quite be true. I have had the very rare experience of not having an enjoyable trip, and even of having an unenjoyable one. Sigh, it happens. But happily this was one of those awesome trips and I can't wait to share it! We've been home for just over two weeks now, still working on the jet lag but far enough along that we are pretty much sleep cycle adapted, although still feeling a little lethargic. Feeling lethargic, I have learned, is a good thing, and do please, please listen to what I say here and learn from my experiences and not your own...... jet lag can be DANGEROUS, in ways that I sure as anything didn't know anything about. I was in a car accident last week, and it would appear as though the most likely culprit was jet lag. It was 6 days after our return..... I had intentionally waited 3 days before doing any driving, then I waited until I had two normal sleep cycles before going out at night. And then I went out in the car in the evening to take my son and I to the swimming pool. I wasn't feeling tired, I hadn't had any alcoholic beverages in days, no medications. One minute I was driving along fully cognizant of where I was, the next I was being woken up by what felt like the biggest speed bump ever but which was in actuality the curb as I went barreling over it at full speed seeing directly in front of me the driver's side door of a thankfully large SUV. I had no time to do or think anything, except think "I can not hit that door", trying to swerve, which I think I might have succeeded at to some extent since I did not hit the door of the SUV, and trying to brake, which I have no idea if I was successful at, and which probably wouldn't have been effective anyways since my wheels were shot and I was possibly in the air as well. A couple of seconds later I came to rest on a slight incline on the other side of three lanes of vehicles. Thankfully although I did hit at least one other vehicle and my car is likely a write-off there were no serious injuries to people, in fact my son and I may be the only ones with any injuries, and his are very minor. After things were cleared up at the scene my son and I went in to the emergency room of the hospital to get checked out. There we started to examine the mystery of why I was suddenly asleep while driving. It was very strange, in that I had no warning. I was not feeling tired that day. I did not feel drowsy while driving. I had not been starting to feel sleepy as I drove. I literally was awake, then I was not. The doctors did an ECG and I was on a heart monitor for a couple of days. Nothing. The only variables leading up to the accident that were different from the thousands of times I have gone driving in the evenings without suddenly falling into unconsciousness was my recent return from a lengthy visit to a location 14 time zones away. So a friend of mine started to do some searching on jet lag. And I started asking around. What I have come to from this is that it is quite possible that that little thing we call jet lag could have been the culprit. Jet lag messes up your rhythms, we know this. But I do not think an understanding of how much it messes up our rhythms, and the body's communication, is out there in the general public, it certainly isn't in the general public I hang out with. Moving quickly from different time zones not only messes up one's ability to sleep at the appropriate time in the new location, but it also messes up the body's ability to accurately communicate how it is feeling. As in, you might be absolutely exhausted, and not be hearing that from your body. And that is likely what happened to me. Between the 8 hours of broken sleep over the 48 hours between when I woke up the morning of the start of my return travels and arriving back home, and the lesser amounts of sleep I got because of sleep cycle adjustment after getting back, I would have been seriously sleep deprived. But I didn't feel it because my body's signalling abilities were messed up. Being ignorant of the inadvisability of trusting in my body's signals almost a week after my return I thought not feeling tired meant I wasn't tired. So out I go. But my body is physically on the verge of collapse from exhaustion. So put it in a dark environment, at a time which on its most recently adjusted schedule is slightly early morning after an all nighter and, well, it stops. And I pass out. Completely without warning and outside of my control. In the process of my inquiries I have had related to me a tale of a similar experience.... a friend just dropped in his kitchen, then woke a few minutes later, had a milkshake as he says, and everything was fine. Well, I dropped in the car. While driving. Thankfully there were relatively minor consequences, I shudder to think of what could have happened. In the future I'm going to be tabulating how much sleep I have, and I'll wait until I start to feel tired when I should, and then don't feel tired, instead of just waiting until I don't feel tired, before I start to think I'm even beginning to move over jet lag. So I request of any of you who may choose to do lengthy travelling, please, please, factor in accommodations for proper adjustment upon your return. Don't drive, operate if you're a doctor (please no!), or geez, walk along cliff faces, until you have felt tired, then felt not tired, AND can tabulate an appropriate number of sleep hours, as a MINIMUM. In his searches my friend found a statement that it generally takes 1-2 days per time zone difference to re-adjust, which means that for a trip such as the one from which I just returned, with its 14 hour time difference, the readjustment period would likely be between 14 and 28 days, way longer than most of us allow, and certainly long enough to be of impact in our lives. So before you go away even plan on how you are going to protect yourself and those around you for the appropriate time while you recover, how you will decide if you are re-adjusted enough to start re-engaging in regular activities, and how you are going to undertake this process. Please do not rely upon this blog to determine your behaviours, I am just relating my personal experiences as a watch out! this is something to check out!, I am no expert, I am still hunting for usable information myself. What I am doing right now is taking cabs, buses, and rides from friends when I need to get about. It's been 2.5 weeks now, and I have been through feeling slightly fatigued, as though I haven't had a terribly good night's sleep, so I think my body's signals are working again, I hope. Regarding my previous experiences of what I understood to be jet lag, I have found that a three week trip is about my cut-off for the jet lag experience - trips under 3 weeks have a relatively easy readjustment period (although it's still there, so be careful still!), trips over three weeks have a considerably more painful, lengthy, and impactful readjustment period. This is why I took what most people around here would have viewed as fairly excessive precautions, such as not driving at all for three days, and waiting for 2 normal sleep cycles before heading out in the evening, when I returned from this trip, even though evidently they were not enough. Perhaps those precautions would be adequate for a short trip, although I wouldn't count on it, like I said, I'm not an expert and I am still hunting for information. If anyone else has any information please share, this is an area of knowledge that would be good to get accurate information out in.
So there is my warning note, I have to go now but I will be back to write more on this latest amazing adventure of ours in Mom and Son Explorations!
My son and I just returned from yet another visit to SE Asia. I do so love travelling to this part of the world.
This time we were gone for just short of 6 weeks, travelling mainly through Thailand with a short hop up into Laos. And it was, well, awesome. It usually is. Ha ha, I almost said always, but that wouldn't quite be true. I have had the very rare experience of not having an enjoyable trip, and even of having an unenjoyable one. Sigh, it happens. But happily this was one of those awesome trips and I can't wait to share it! We've been home for just over two weeks now, still working on the jet lag but far enough along that we are pretty much sleep cycle adapted, although still feeling a little lethargic. Feeling lethargic, I have learned, is a good thing, and do please, please listen to what I say here and learn from my experiences and not your own...... jet lag can be DANGEROUS, in ways that I sure as anything didn't know anything about. I was in a car accident last week, and it would appear as though the most likely culprit was jet lag. It was 6 days after our return..... I had intentionally waited 3 days before doing any driving, then I waited until I had two normal sleep cycles before going out at night. And then I went out in the car in the evening to take my son and I to the swimming pool. I wasn't feeling tired, I hadn't had any alcoholic beverages in days, no medications. One minute I was driving along fully cognizant of where I was, the next I was being woken up by what felt like the biggest speed bump ever but which was in actuality the curb as I went barreling over it at full speed seeing directly in front of me the driver's side door of a thankfully large SUV. I had no time to do or think anything, except think "I can not hit that door", trying to swerve, which I think I might have succeeded at to some extent since I did not hit the door of the SUV, and trying to brake, which I have no idea if I was successful at, and which probably wouldn't have been effective anyways since my wheels were shot and I was possibly in the air as well. A couple of seconds later I came to rest on a slight incline on the other side of three lanes of vehicles. Thankfully although I did hit at least one other vehicle and my car is likely a write-off there were no serious injuries to people, in fact my son and I may be the only ones with any injuries, and his are very minor. After things were cleared up at the scene my son and I went in to the emergency room of the hospital to get checked out. There we started to examine the mystery of why I was suddenly asleep while driving. It was very strange, in that I had no warning. I was not feeling tired that day. I did not feel drowsy while driving. I had not been starting to feel sleepy as I drove. I literally was awake, then I was not. The doctors did an ECG and I was on a heart monitor for a couple of days. Nothing. The only variables leading up to the accident that were different from the thousands of times I have gone driving in the evenings without suddenly falling into unconsciousness was my recent return from a lengthy visit to a location 14 time zones away. So a friend of mine started to do some searching on jet lag. And I started asking around. What I have come to from this is that it is quite possible that that little thing we call jet lag could have been the culprit. Jet lag messes up your rhythms, we know this. But I do not think an understanding of how much it messes up our rhythms, and the body's communication, is out there in the general public, it certainly isn't in the general public I hang out with. Moving quickly from different time zones not only messes up one's ability to sleep at the appropriate time in the new location, but it also messes up the body's ability to accurately communicate how it is feeling. As in, you might be absolutely exhausted, and not be hearing that from your body. And that is likely what happened to me. Between the 8 hours of broken sleep over the 48 hours between when I woke up the morning of the start of my return travels and arriving back home, and the lesser amounts of sleep I got because of sleep cycle adjustment after getting back, I would have been seriously sleep deprived. But I didn't feel it because my body's signalling abilities were messed up. Being ignorant of the inadvisability of trusting in my body's signals almost a week after my return I thought not feeling tired meant I wasn't tired. So out I go. But my body is physically on the verge of collapse from exhaustion. So put it in a dark environment, at a time which on its most recently adjusted schedule is slightly early morning after an all nighter and, well, it stops. And I pass out. Completely without warning and outside of my control. In the process of my inquiries I have had related to me a tale of a similar experience.... a friend just dropped in his kitchen, then woke a few minutes later, had a milkshake as he says, and everything was fine. Well, I dropped in the car. While driving. Thankfully there were relatively minor consequences, I shudder to think of what could have happened. In the future I'm going to be tabulating how much sleep I have, and I'll wait until I start to feel tired when I should, and then don't feel tired, instead of just waiting until I don't feel tired, before I start to think I'm even beginning to move over jet lag. So I request of any of you who may choose to do lengthy travelling, please, please, factor in accommodations for proper adjustment upon your return. Don't drive, operate if you're a doctor (please no!), or geez, walk along cliff faces, until you have felt tired, then felt not tired, AND can tabulate an appropriate number of sleep hours, as a MINIMUM. In his searches my friend found a statement that it generally takes 1-2 days per time zone difference to re-adjust, which means that for a trip such as the one from which I just returned, with its 14 hour time difference, the readjustment period would likely be between 14 and 28 days, way longer than most of us allow, and certainly long enough to be of impact in our lives. So before you go away even plan on how you are going to protect yourself and those around you for the appropriate time while you recover, how you will decide if you are re-adjusted enough to start re-engaging in regular activities, and how you are going to undertake this process. Please do not rely upon this blog to determine your behaviours, I am just relating my personal experiences as a watch out! this is something to check out!, I am no expert, I am still hunting for usable information myself. What I am doing right now is taking cabs, buses, and rides from friends when I need to get about. It's been 2.5 weeks now, and I have been through feeling slightly fatigued, as though I haven't had a terribly good night's sleep, so I think my body's signals are working again, I hope. Regarding my previous experiences of what I understood to be jet lag, I have found that a three week trip is about my cut-off for the jet lag experience - trips under 3 weeks have a relatively easy readjustment period (although it's still there, so be careful still!), trips over three weeks have a considerably more painful, lengthy, and impactful readjustment period. This is why I took what most people around here would have viewed as fairly excessive precautions, such as not driving at all for three days, and waiting for 2 normal sleep cycles before heading out in the evening, when I returned from this trip, even though evidently they were not enough. Perhaps those precautions would be adequate for a short trip, although I wouldn't count on it, like I said, I'm not an expert and I am still hunting for information. If anyone else has any information please share, this is an area of knowledge that would be good to get accurate information out in.
So there is my warning note, I have to go now but I will be back to write more on this latest amazing adventure of ours in Mom and Son Explorations!
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