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 re