Does the time change, or jet lag, mess with you mentally?

I don’t have problems with jet lag most of the time, because my circadian clock gets reset to the new time zone by the sun.

But I am having a hard time this week dealing with the time change, and I realized last night it is because of an incongruity between where the sun is and the time of day.

It usually is not much of an issue for me, but I am getting old.

Not really. When on WestPac, our boat would cross time zones often enough that many days were either 23 or 25 hours long. Add in a few cross-country flights going home on leave and a work schedule that pretty much obliterated my circadian rhythm, and the result is that minor details like time or how light/dark the sky is have no real effect on me.

That isn’t to say that I don’t have a messed up sense of time, only that things like jet lag and daylight savings time don’t screw me up any worse than I already am.

Daylight savings and back is never a big deal for me, except that I would prefer daylight savings time all year.

Jet lag kills me if the time change is 5+ hours. I’m so messed up. Especially, when I fly back home coming from east of where I live. So, coming back from Europe messes me up for a week. I wouldn’t say I have mental problems from it, I’m just exhausted. Sleep pattern all messed up.

I simply dislike it when it gets dark at 5:30. But I’ll get over it. Now, are we on time the way it’s supposed to be or enhanced time? If the former, I kind of prefer the enhanced, it feels like the day is still going a little after dinner time.

^^This is standard time. Daylight savings is what we have through the summer months.

Is there any real reason we continue to do this madness every year?

@Dutchess_III It continues because the recreation industry wants it. And people don’t like it light out early in the morning in summer, and don’t like kids walking to school in the dark in the winter.

I blame George Bush for messing it up and extending it to ridiculous. Used to not start until end of April, and end in October.

I don’t quite understand what the recreation industry has to do with it.?

@Dutchess_III Who do you think wants thinks like softball fields and go cart tracks and tennis courts and fishing areas and golf courses open later in the evening in the summer? By adopting Daylight SavingsTime they get to stay open an hour later than they would on Standard Time.

I was thinking more of the winter months, @zenvelo.

@Dutchess_III Daylight Savings doesn’t work in the winter months because it gets light so late that kids get run over walking to school. We did year round DST in the 1970’s during the Arab Oil embargo, and it was not at all popular.

Hm. I don’t remember that, @zenvelo!

There is an argument that kids go to school too early, which I agree with. At least some states have started to have high school be the late starting group, it used to be the high schoolers went the earliest, which is just awful and illogical to me. Elementary usually don’t walk to school on their own, so there are parents and traffic guards helping them out. Most are driven to school now.

@JLeslie There were also a large number of school bus accidents.

@zenvelo Interesting. I remember once reading about accidents when the time first changes. Not school bus, but in general. That the shift in time causes traffic problems for a few days or weeks? I don’t remember. I don’t know how valid what I read was? If it was evaluated over many years? Many states? I’ll have to try to google it.

It’s amazing how a change in routine, or a change in the things surrounding that routine, can affect people like that. We had a stop light that was out at the busiest intersection in town. They had lights flashing red in all four directions, but people had the hardest time switch to a four way stop menatlity. There were people who would just stop, then go without looking. There were some who actually just ran the light without stopping at all. Utter chaos and confusion, by people who otherwise knew what to do at a four way stop. By myself, it was OK, but I had no idea what the people around you were going to do, and do unexpectedly. After the first time I just avoided that intersection altogether until they got the light fixed.

We had a bad ice storm 10 years ago. It really tore up many of the older trees. I didn’t realize how I subconsiously used the trees to help keep my bearing until the first time I drove up our residental street after that. It was like, “Holy crap! I have NO idea where I am!” I mean, I knew I was at 12th and Cherry or whatever, but I couldn’t feel it, if that makes sense.

@Dutchess_III Sone people don’t know a flashing red is a stop sign. Scary!

It’s worse when an intersection has the traffic lights not working at all from a power failure. Add to it if one road is a main road and the other a smaller road. People on the larger road sometimes feel they have the right of way rather than treating the intersection like a 4-way stop. After hurricanes there are tons if intersections like that for miles and miles in highly populated areas. The more traffic the better actually, because a pattern develops to stop.

Oh, they knew. They just couldn’t wrap their minds around it, after years of going through that intersection via stop lights. It confused even me. I can’t explain it. So I just avoided it.