phase

1. The offset of one's waking-sleeping schedule with respect

to the standard 24-hour cycle; a useful concept among people

who often work at night and/or according to no fixed schedule.

It is not uncommon to change one's phase by as much as 6 hours

per day on a regular basis. "What's your phase?" "I've been

getting in about 8 P.M. lately, but I'm going to wrap around

to the day schedule by Friday." A person who is roughly 12

hours out of phase is sometimes said to be in "night mode".

(The term "day mode" is also (but less frequently) used,

meaning you're working 9 to 5 (or, more likely, 10 to 6).)

The act of altering one's cycle is called "changing phase";

"phase shifting" has also been recently reported from Caltech.

2. "change phase the hard way": To stay awake for a very long

time in order to get into a different phase.

3. "change phase the easy way": To stay asleep, etc. However,

some claim that either staying awake longer or sleeping longer

is easy, and that it is *shortening* your day or night that is

really hard (see wrap around). The "jet lag" that afflicts

travelers who cross many time-zone boundaries may be

attributed to two distinct causes: the strain of travel per

se, and the strain of changing phase. Hackers who suddenly

find that they must change phase drastically in a short period

of time, particularly the hard way, experience something very

like jet lag without travelling.