For a 36-hour overseas trip, why might staying on home sleep hours beat forcing local time?

Answer: The clock shifts slowly

The clock shifts slowly ✓ — Correct: the clock often moves too slowly for a 36-hour visit to repay the cost of full adjustment. CDC guidance explicitly includes keeping home-base sleep hours for short trips where adaptation would be limited. The surprising tradeoff is that "try local time immediately" is not always the lowest-disruption plan.

One nap resets it — A nap can reduce sleepiness, but it is not a reset button for the circadian system. The clock still needs repeated time cues such as light, darkness, sleep timing, and activity. Treating one nap as a reboot is tempting because you feel better fast, but feeling better is not the same as being aligned.

Miles matter most — Distance matters less than time-zone mismatch. A long north-south trip can be tiring, but jet lag specifically comes from the internal clock being out of sync with local time. Mayo's rough rule that recovery often takes about a day per crossed time zone shows why a very short trip may end before full adjustment is useful.