To say that I am not a morning person in my own Standard Pacific Time Zone would be quite an exaggeration….if my family or friends would call at any point prior 10am they would be met with a groggy version of me asking what they are thinking calling me in the middle of the night?!?!?!?! With my new career, however, there is no such thing as “too early” and typically no luxury  of arriving days in advance to adjust the body clock to the time difference. The following are little tricks have I started playing on my mind in order to make the transition smoother:

1.) As soon as I climb into my seat on the plane (and get my in-flight set up squared away), I immediately set both my computer clock and watch to the time zone to which I am heading. The mental preparation begins immediately and goes on throughout the duration of the flight so the adjustment of arriving somewhere 2 or 3 hours ahead has time to settle in.

2.) I eat my meals according to the new time, whether I am hungry or not. For some reason eating dinner between 6:00 and 7:00 (even if my stomach screams that it is only 3:00 or 4:00) makes my mind recognize that bed time is only a couple more hours away.

3.) I sleep with the hotel curtains mostly open. One of my favorite things about staying in hotels is that the rooms can typically be completely blacked out…..this is not a good situation when your 6:00am alarm goes off (which really would be the middle of the night in my home time zone). With the natural morning light streaming through the windows the body wakes up slower than with a shocking noise in a pitch black room.

Other handy tools that you might have learned along the way are certainly welcome!

…..not a morning person…