What Can Affect Your Academic Performance?: Winter in Japan vs the US, and Different Types of Jetlag

Hi! This is Erika Shinoda from Japan :)

The Winter quarter has begun and I decided to move back to SB from Japan. The main reason was dealing with the time difference was tough. I would have classes starting from 2, 3, 6, 7 am like other international students studying in different countries. I would stay up until 3 or 4 every day and would sleep past noon. I would be awake during the night but my mind did not function well, so I would feel like I have wasted the day almost every day. I did not want to spend my last 2 quarters at college like this, which is why I flew back to IV. 

Another reason was that I did not want to deal with so much snow. Where I live, in Niigata which is Northern Japan, we have had the most snowfall now since 1980. It became close to 3m (9.8ft) in January which is crazy. We would wake up to not being able to get out of our house with so much snow and had to shovel ourselves out. I am the type of person whose mood is affected by weather, so having heavy snow and cloudy weather did not help on top of the time difference. This is what it looks like before and after snow shoveling which took over 2 hours.

Now that I have moved back to SB, I am enjoying the sun and the ocean. Watching the beautiful sunset every day and not having to freeze going outside feels amazing. I am sending pictures to my parents to make them jealous every day which is a funny conversation I enjoy with them because they still have to deal with the snow. 

I know snow is nice and beautiful. I enjoy that too. BUT having 3m of snow and having to shovel all of that, worrying about the snow covering the rodes, and driving with white walls all around is not something you enjoy. It is fun visiting, but less fun living there. I still love my hometown, but I am also glad I am here in SB now haha.

It has been 2 days since I flew back, and I still have terrible jetlag. It is not fun :( I missed some lectures that I have to watch to catch up so it will be very easy this weekend. But, did you know there was something called social jetlag? Social jetlag happens with the time difference of when you go to bed on weekdays and on weekends. So, we all have a risk of experiencing this type of jetlag during our everyday life even if we do not travel. 

According to Diaz-Morales and Escribiano (2015), social jetlag was negatively related to academic achievement and cognitive abilities. This means that sleeping at a decent time on weekdays but staying up late on weekends will impact grades and emotions. Even if you do not have class or tests on weekends, you should keep a consistent sleep schedule in order to do good academically the next week. I did not know that I could experience jetlag staying in the same timezone before. So since I am experiencing traveling jetlag now, I want to fix my sleeping schedule as soon as possible and try not to experience social jetlag throughout this quarter. 

Citation

Juan F. Díaz-Morales & Cristina Escribano (2015) Social jetlag, academic achievement and cognitive performance: Understanding gender/sex differences, Chronobiology International, 32:6, 822-831, DOI: 10.3109/07420528.2015.1041599