On Fighting Jet Lag and Noise During a Trip Overseas

I'm in Texas right now and severely "jet lagged" for over a week already. Apart from the numerous timezone and daylight saving time changes - it's 3:33 AM now here and it's 5:33 PM there in my hometown Manila, I've travelled with heavy luggages for whole days to get to Las Vegas, San Francisco and finally here (more states to come..). It's quite clear that I don't like moving around a lot from place to place on trips and tiring myself haha. I've been having trouble sleeping, been irritable, feeling tired and can't make up my mind to do my blogging. Rather than just let it go on for the rest of the trip, I've decided to make some changes like stepping out of the hotel room, just writing and clearing my head! It's amazing what a laptop, a sudden change and cold air can do to a tired and cranky brain haha.

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My big travel issue now is noise. I can't be a choosy roommate all the time and I run out of patience too, especially when I'm sleepy, tired or hungry. I like quiet in the mornings and in the evenings. Most of the time when I travel, I just can't help but be awake when I have a roommate that is not so silent or inactive at my bedtime like with incessant chatting, uncontrollable snoring, laughing, sleepwalking, not turning the lights off, demanding, asking you to do stuff they could do, doesn't put their cell in silent and the phone keeps on beeping or ringing while you're asleep, etc. I'm a light sleeper and I have no plan of disrupting somebody else's deep sleep or business. What I've noticed though is a nagging voice in my head, "why can't this person be considerate for me?" and I struggle the next day (and continue to blame that person) from lack of sleep. I don't want to think like that forever so I've decided to do something about it and I was pleasantly surprised with the outcome right now. 

As I said, and for the first time, I've stepped out of the room (for over an hour now) and started working & writing instead of tossing around on the bed (while the unstoppable noise of a person on the phone at 2AM just keeps on echoing in the bathroom). I've gotten maybe 2 hours of sleep in total a while ago before I was awakened by all the chatting.. That's about the same total amount of sleep I had yesterday... Now, I only hear the background noise of the ice vending machine and I've calmed down - able to think positive thoughts, remember how to be happy and do lots of things I want to do without the constant trigger in the room. Good thing there's very good complimentary WIFI here all over the hotel at the Fairfield Inn by Marriott so I can hit publish here anywhere!!! hahaha.

I've also made up my mind to try to find and buy earplugs tomorrow. I think it's going to be a good investment and travel gear =) One consequence of being awake like this makes me hungry and tired the next day haha. If there's food at the common area below in this unholy hour, I've probably have done that instead.. I think the best option really is still to tire myself out now and catch up on some sleep. At least now I have an alternative =D

Signing out at 4:15 AM! I have another travel issue with the cold and it's getting pretty chilly out here! Brrrrr!!!


How about you? Have you ever had noise problems when traveling like me or something you'd have to deal with every day or jet lag? What do you do to fight/get over it? I'll be super glad if you could give me more tips below =)