is this jetlag or something else more serious?
I'm from California, 34 year old male. I just came back home to California. I spent January to September traveling Southeast Asia, Australia and Japan. I flew from Japan to San Francisco with a 4 hour connecting flight layover in Philippines.
Flight left at 1130 pm in Philippines and arrived in California at 8 pm. I stayed at the airport arrival area until the following day (because I didn't want to pay over $100 for 1 night at a hotel) to catch the greyhound bus to my local city. Needless to say I tried to sleep at the airport, but couldn't sleep at all. I arrived at my home city at 4 pm. All in all it took almost 48 hours of travel time including the transit and layover and staying in airport
I've only been able to sleep 4-5 hours at a time. I would go to bed at 10 pm and would wake up at always the same time at 230am to 330 am. And i can't get back to sleep no matter what. So I just stay awake on my bed reading or browsing the Internet on my iPad. It's 4 am as I type this. I spent the whole day awake. I try to avoid taking naps in the afternoon coz I know I won't be able to sleep at night. I took fast dissolve melatonin and Benadryl but the results were the same. I can only get 4-5 hours of sleep. If I take a nap in the afternoon, and take melatonin and/or Benadryl at night, I can't even sleep at night. So no naps for me.
When I was traveling, I would like to say I averaged about 7 hours. I would sleep past midnite at 1230 am, and I would wake up at 7 am. I would wake up feeling rested, and felt it was adequate.
But I just don't know what to do. Sleeping at 10 pm and waking up at 3 am is so annoying. By afternoon around 3 pm I feel so sleepy. I resist the urge to take a nap. What can I do? Is this jetlag? Japan is 16 hours ahead of California, and I read online that for each timezone, it will take my body 16 days in my case to adjust. I'm anxious what if I never adjust.
I've had jetlag before when I was a teenager, traveling the same direction, Philippines to california, and it took me about 20 days to adjust. During that time, I only slept about 2 hours a day even after taking melatonin.
I admit, I have been feeling anxious as I prepare to look for a job in the next 2 weeks. (My mom and her side of the family has a history of undiagnosed anxiety, so maybe i have it too) Also after traveling for so long, a lot of Changes has happened. Most of my friends have moved to another city or out of state and I don't see them as often. Times are changing. Traveling long term was so great, now that I'm back in my local city which is a dusty brown very hot desert town, I feel kind of down as well. It's only been 8 days since I got back home, but I'm still trying to adjust to life.
any advice on how to at least get to sleep and wake up at 6 am. I'm afraid if I stay up until midnite to sleep, I'll just wake up at 3 am like I usually do lately.
Last edited by jetlagged; 09-27-2016 at 05:31 AM.
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