Transferred from my old blog: 8 days of jet lag

April 26, 2004

I got back to Vancouver 8 days (sleeps) ago. I slept really well on my first night home, but every night since then I've been incapable of getting to sleep before 2 am. I live on campus, a mere 5 minute walk away from my lab, so I can sleep until 8 am - but that's only 6 hours of sleep a night. It's driving me crazy. I've had jetlag before, but I normally get over it after 2 or 3 days. But this is ridiculous - its not getting any better or worse, just plenty of lying around in bed wondering if the sun will be up before I get to sleep. Admittedly on one of those nights, I had some coke a bit late in the day, and I think I may have been suffering the effects of caffeine. At 2 am I decided to combat the caffeine with a couple of temazapam that I had left over from my flight. It worked, and I got to sleep. But they were a bit too effective, and when I woke up at 8 am the next morning, I wasn't really awake...it was more like sleep walking until about midday. I tried drinking some sleepytime tea at about 11:30 last night, but two hours later I was still awake. At least we just had a weekend, and while I found myself still awake at 2 am, I got to sleep for as long as I wanted. So I had sort of caught up on my sleep, and then I had to start the week off fresh with only 6 hours again today.

So, does anyone have any bright ideas for sleeping?