The Snickers Search

I'm going to start this post with a bit of a tangent.

As most reading this will know, Holly and I hail from Victoria, British Columbia. British Columbia has recently conducted a survey on daylight saving time. This survey received a record number of participants (~250,000) in an extremely short period of time (~ 4 weeks?). Why so many? I would speculate that it's because it affects everyone and is generally not well liked. For good reason, I suppose. A lot of research has shown correlation with adverse effects to public health (see this article. For instance, it has been found that there is a considerable increase in traffic related accidents and injuries on the day of the time change versus other days in the year.

The human brain does not appreciate having its sleep / timezone messed with.

Now that is something I can definitely agree with! When Holly and I were planning many of our flights, we decided that we would take overnight flights so that we could sleep on the plane and avoid having to get a hotel or a room for that day/night. What we didn't anticipate, was how messed up we might be after a few hours of plane sleep and many hours of time difference in a new part of the world.

The first experience we had with this was arriving in Iceland on our first day. We had been very ambtious with our goals of where we would be driving to that day. We ended up not eating anything and going on an overly exhausted (probably ill-advised), but ultimately awesome hike to a thermal river. The next day WHEN, we woke up we talked about how weird it was that we had made that decision.

The second experience was flying into Paris. Our flight left Iceland at 12:40 am and arrived in Paris at 6 am (3 am Iceland time). Upon arriving, we decided somewhat impulsively that we would rent a car. This decision ultimately turned out to be an amazing one as it allowed us to see all sorts of amazing things. What was not great, was how we head-nodded our way through the rental process and agreeement and ended up paying more than we had anticipated due to various fees and charges which we weren't mentally equipped to dispute or discuss. After renting the car, we proceeded to not eat and drive out of Paris, in Paris traffic, toward Vimy Ridge which was about 2 hours away.

Photo Credit: Dr Bob Hall

When we got to Vimy Ridge, we decided to still not eat anything and walk around the memorial in 37℃ for another hour and half. After Vimy ridge we finally found somewhere to have lunch (~ 2pm at this point) and then proceeded to drive the 2 hours to Rouen. About 20 minutes into this drive, we were singing all of the songs we knew at the tops of our lungs to keep ourselves alert. An hour in, we stopped at a rest stop and had a nap 😴for half an hour. We finally made it to Rouen safe and sound. The next day we again found ourselves recalling the previous days decisions and wondered...

Why did we do that?

Based on the tangent I started this post with, I think it's pretty obvious. The pattern seems to be very similar. Upon arrival a few things happen, we get the feeling that we are rushed or late for something (though we have nowhere to be). This rushing leads us to not stop for food, which leads to low blood sugar and culminates in poor decision making. Being the overly analytical Type A optimizers that we are, we have noticed this pattern and formed a strategy. When we arrive at a new location and retrieve our bags, the first course of action is to locate a Snickers. Yes. The chocolate bar. Once located, we buy one, we sit down for 5-10 minutes, share the snickers and try to recalibrate ourselves and prepare for the next part of the journey. We have no forced ourselves to do this exercise a few times now and the funny thing about it is, at the time it always feels like we shouldn't stop because we're in a "rush", but thats just the brain playin tricks. Hence the strategy. So far so good. Granted the time changes have been less drastic, but we seem to be making wild decisions less frequently.

Also, when buying items from a vending machine always try to give exact change or credit card. Sometimes the machines don't have change to give back and your snickers costs you 5€ 😬.

Note:

We are in no-way sponsored by Snickers... though that would be awesome.