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 8PM
   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.

[glossary]
[Reference(s) to this entry by made by: {day mode}{hacking run}{night mode}{wrap around}]