On my recent trip to the UK and Europe, I was expecting to be massively jet-lagged the entire time I was there. After all, I left Dallas at Noon on Wednesday, flew to London, arrived at about 6am London time, with no sleep. I did manage to sleep a bit on Thursday afternoon, but not that much. Then on Friday we took off for Germany – a long car trip. We got to the skatepark/campground well after midnight, slept on the ground, woke up early, and skated.

The next night we had cots to put our sleeping bags on, but still, I was operating on very little rest, or so it seemed.

While we were in Germany, we went to sleep when it go dark. We had no appreciable artificial light. We got up when it got light outside, which was about 5am.

I am seriously wondering if reverting to what is really a natural sleep schedule, unaffected by artificial light, made me feel so much better that the jet lag just disappeared. I think it may have done just that. I’m thinking that our modern schedule, in which we are so busy and work most of the day, drives us to stay up later just to feel like we’re having a life, and results in illness, insomnia, and just generally feeling like shit.