My Heart has a Jet Lag!

[EmekaUlor]

 Is it true that "Jet lag is for amateurs."

After the long trip from Nigeria to San Francisco via Dubai and vice versa, it never occurred to me that my heart and body would play tricks on me.

It's about 7hrs to Dubai from Lagos and 15hrs from Dubai to San Francisco. Approximately, a sum of 24hrs (one way) and 48hrs (return) trip!

The physical and chemical composition of my body may have witnessed some extreme reactions. Did the hormones secret too much or too little?Getting up was a Herculean task. Even the spirit was in slumber.

"I refer to jet lag as 'jet-psychosis - there's an old saying that the spirit cannot move faster than a camel."

For about four days, I was eating at 12 midnight and able to wake at 10am. It looked like the days were faster and I was slower, yet struggled with the brief trauma. Trance or Flux?

Caption: Onboard TV Screen showing flight time and distance to San Francisco

 And I remembered that "it takes your sleeping self years to catch up to where you really are. ... when you go on a trip, in your dreams you will still be home. Then after you've come home you'll dream of where you were. It's a kind of jet lag of the consciousness."

Yes, different ideas, numerous experiences to help cure this temporary sickness:

"As soon as I reach my destination I have a cup of tea, something to eat and then sleep for about 13 hours. I make that an absolute rule and I always feel fresh afterwards and never have jet lag."

Still searching for the best treatment; "I'd love to get ideas on overcoming jet lag."

Meanwhile, my favourite quote about jet lag is definitely from Karen Marie Moning, she said "My heart has jet lag."

Yes, my heart has a jet lag because I am overwhelmingly happy for Connect Live 2018!

How did you feel after your trip and what's the best way to overcome jetlag, from your experience?

Caption: Photograph showing a Local Guide in an airplane wearing blue denim jacket, glasses and headphone
Xoxo
Emeka

P.S I played with quotes here. 😊

#localguidesconnect #localguides 

[Ivi_Ge]

Hey @EmekaUlor, very interesting post, thanks for sharing. I really like the sentence : "My heart has jet lag!".

As I remember from school, one of the main signals that help to regulate our body clocks is light, which helps us to reset our internal clocks each day to match the sun. To help your body clock reset to the new time zone, it's important to seek out and avoid light at the right times of day. If you're traveling east, you'll want to advance your body clock, so seeking morning light and avoiding late afternoon light will help your body clock adjust to your earlier time zone. If you're traveling west, you'd want to do the opposite.

[KimberlyAnnG]

I know exactly what you mean @EmekaUlor

My heart (and body) have jet lag too......and I live here.  Flew nowhere.

Last week I found myself completely exhausted and couldn't quite pin it down.  Then I think back to the two weeks prior.  One leading up to the momentous week, filled with arrivals and greetings for friends new and old.  The excitement was building!  

Week of Connect Live starting officially on

• Saturday Oct 13 with lots of running around the Bay Area, showing off the home I'm pretty proud of! A speed tour of Silicon Valley Tech Giants with @YasumiKikuchi @ShadySalama and @InnocensiaO followed by my Photowalk in The Mission District SF.  
• Sunday was consumed with Paul's Epic Bike Ride. 
• Monday the 36 Photowalk with @PaulPavlinovich...again.
• Tuesday morning my own Big City Photowalk.  Back just in time to go to the Welcome Party to meet everyone!  Tuesday night spent exploring The Castro with 16 other Local Guides......no easy task when only two of us have access to Uber!  Thanks to @AdrianLunsong and @Twister411 for their help then and throughout the week!
• Wednesday is a blur of Keynote and breakouts...awesome speakers, followed by a fun party at Terra Galleries.  In the late hours of the evening, we made a trip out to the Golden Gate Bridge to do some writing with light.  @ValeriaA_, @Tula and I were frozen moral support for @PaulPavlinovich as he performed his magic!
• Thursday started with some bus drama (no shows) and a long ugly commute to Mountain View.  More sessions, more panels, more party! Ricoh Thetas for everyone to cap the night off!!!  Taking a 9pm flight to Anaheim was my closing ceremonies!

I look back at those two weeks and am surprised I got any sleep!!!!  Can't wait to do it again!

I've linked the Google Photos albums with photos of all!  Hope you will enjoy the memories as much as I do!

~Kimmy~

I told all the newbies that this event would be life changing.  What I didn't realize is that it would continue to be so for me as well.

My heart is happy for all of the wonderful people I reconnected with or added to my circle of friends.  Now they've all gone home and it's sooooo quiet here.  Miss you guys, come back soon!

[EmekaUlor]

@Ivi_Ge wow, I just learned a new one from you. Light.

I will keep that at the back of my head but I hope I get the East and West lighting right.

Cheers 

[EmekaUlor]

@KimberlyAnnG sure you understand.

I really admired your energy and patrotism. San Francisco should be proud of you. One thing I liked about you is your hair! Colourful as California

Thank you for taking time to give details and photo links.

Cheers

[YasumiKikuchi]

Hello @EmekaUlor
As @KimberlyAnnG says, in addition to the influence of the airplane, it was an exciting party, so invisible overwork of several days not resting accumulated.

I have sleep problems due to PTSD caused by traffic accident several years ago, so I do not have stress even if I can not sleep. Here are some tips. We do not have to go to bed if you can not sleep (You can do add the place on the map all night as I do😂). When we become sleepy, we just sleep🛌

[EmekaUlor]

Hey @YasumiKikuchi good to read from you. 

You are so funny, I guess we may need to continue mapping until sleep comes! You are energetic enough, so I won't doubt you being up all night 

How's Japan today?

Cheers bro.

[YasumiKikuchi]

Hi @EmekaUlor

It's very peaceful today🗾

[PennyChristie]

Jet lag is the worse. I’ve been travelling my whole life and still can’t get used to it. I have recently realised that when I fly EAST, I get jet lag and it takes me about two weeks to adjust; but when I travel WEST I don’t get any jet lag at all.  I was so jet lagged in San Fran but I was also very excited and happy to meet all of my new Local Guide friends. 

[PaulPavlinovich]

These are indeed true feelings @EmekaUlor - its even worse when changing hemispheres. My general advice to minimise the impact (you can't stop it as you're messing with your body clock)

• drink a lot of water on the plane - if you're not getting up to pee at least every two hours you're not drinking enough
• avoid alcohol on long flights
• consume multi-vitamins and melatonin on the plane and each night before bed at your destination for the first few days and again when you get home
• when you land, obey the local time zone immediately, avoid going to sleep early - get out and get active until bed time

As for how your heart feels, there's only one way to address that - continue to be an absolutely awesome Local Guide, get recognised by the team during the year in Maps and here in Connect so that you can go to Connect Live 2019 :).

Regards Paul