Jet Lag

I'm back in the USA as of last evening.  I've never been very successful at navigating jet lag when heading east.  Going west, I have no problem: I usually just try to stay awake for the entire journey, then go to sleep the evening of my arrival at my destination.  Usually, the only side effect is I tend to wake up one or two hours earlier than usual, which is actually a positive and productive side effect.  But going east, I try to sleep on the plane for a few hours, and then stay awake until evening of my arrival at my destination.  Sometimes this works; but sometimes (like last night), despite being absolutely exhausted, I still wake up at 2 or 3 in the morning.  Way too early to call it a morning and have a productive day (I'd likely be crashing by lunchtime).  But by the time I get back to sleep, I either must awaken again very shortly or else sleep in and then have the cycle repeat the next night when I have trouble falling asleep at a reasonable hour.

I think it is because flying east is like travelling into the future, which violates the laws of entropy.  You see, when flying east, you are accelerating the passage of the Sun (or the passage of the night) across the sky.  And when you arrive, you will feel tired, but all external stimulus tells you that it is morning.  But when flying west, you show down time, so you arrive slightly more tired than you should for the time of day; but it is still usually late in the day, so it does not confuse your body's internal clocks.  Then again, I've never covered a distance of more than eight time zones on a single flight.  Perhaps I would have a very different experience if I flew to Australia.  Perhaps I am just talking gibberish; but I'll blame the jetlag. ;-)