Changing time zones, particularly going east, can be problematic for me. I’m prone to be nocturnal anyway and stay up late. My usual bedtime is around midnight... not necessarily by choice (sometimes) but more out of my natural ways. So, when I travel back to the west, like say to New Mexico, it isn’t such a problem because I tend to go to bed around 10 there and it is easier to get up in the morning. However, the longer I am there, the more I adjust to that time zone and the later I stay up. What really screwed me up this time around was Christmas Eve. I had been going to bed at 10 for the entire first week I was there. But then I attended the 9 PM service Christmas Eve (which was good and I have no regrets) which forced me to stay up much later than my bedtime. That meant that I wound up staying up later the next night and the next. Soon I was back into my nocturnal ways there and staying up until midnight there. Now that I have returned to Ohio, I find myself staying up way, way too late. Last night, when I arrived home from the airport, I was up until about 3 or 3:30 AM. Now it’s 2 AM and I’m still not asleep. Although, I am heading in that direction soon.
It’s not so much a problem right at the moment because I don’t have a whole lot going on. I get to sleep in tomorrow. But, soon classes will start and that will be a problem. I tried getting myself up this morning at 10 to try and be tired enough to go to bed early tonight. I did get up then and I was tired earlier this evening, but I didn’t listen to my body and then got a second wind. If I’m not able to correct this in the next couple of days, Sunday should take care of it. I’ll have to get up super early anyway for church... might as well avoid a nap in the afternoon (although that might not be possible) and then go to bed early that night. We’ll see...
More later,
Kate