phase

phase  1. n. 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 traveling.