⚠️ Notice

This post is a draft translation from the Chinese version which have not yet been thoroughly proofread.

💡 BlogBlog Club!

The content of this post seems quite fit the topic “Am I the only one like this?”, which is the topic of February 2026’s BlogBlog Club, but unfortunately I ended up coming too late! I didn’t even get the inspiration to write it until mid-March.

Despite never having travelled to very far places¹, and rarely eat during early morning time, my biological clock inexplicably suffers from severe jet lag. This problem seems to be innate; when I’m not in school or working, my mind stays awake until 2 or 3 am before I start feeling sleepy, then I fall into a deep sleep and don’t wake up naturally until the afternoon of the next day². In recent years, this has been trending later and later. If I try to force myself to go to bed early, I end up with insomnia, lying in bed for hours without being able to fall asleep. However, I personally feel that as long as I’m allowed to go to bed late and wake up late, my sleep is generally sufficient. I only feel sleep-deprived when I force myself to wake up early, as if my biological clock has drifted to another time zone, creating a time difference with the surrounding society. Over time, my lifestyle has become completely reversed, making it impossible for me to adapt to any social demands.

Hypothetical solutions

I’ve been wondering if it’s possible that if I were sent abroad and then sent back, my biological clock might actually be restored. Let’s do the math:

• Flying westward: Suppose I’m flying from Hong Kong to London. Let’s say I take off at 12 midnight Hong Kong time and arrive in London at 7 am (in summer), which is about 14 hours physically. Of those 14 hours on the plane, the latter 7 hours are roughly my current sleep time, and my biological clock immediately returns to normal upon landing. However, this only considers the outbound journey. It’s said that this approach virtually compresses the day on the return trip, essentially forcing myself to go to sleep earlier again, making the symptoms of a disrupted biological clock more likely to recur.
• Flying eastward: Suppose I’m flying from Hong Kong to Vancouver. Let’s say I take off at 12 noon Hong Kong time and arrive in Vancouver at 9 am (in summer), which is about 12 hours physically. I’ll arrive in what would be afternoon on my biological clock, and then I’ll start staying up late to fall asleep in what feels like the early morning (late night on the West Coast of North America). However, to correct my biological clock this way, I would probably have to stay in North America for at least a week, which would essentially shift my biological clock phase backward until the time difference exceeds 24 hours. Doesn’t that seem to put a greater strain on my body?

Poor light exposure

Scientific research suggests that if you simply want to adjust your biological clock, light exposure may be more effective than a long-distance travel. In fact, my light exposure habits in Hong Kong are already quite poor, I’m constantly exposed to indoor environments filled with white and blue light, even late at night. Perhaps I should install a warm light in the room where my brain is working at its peak late at night.