naturally nocturnal ??

[jz]

A small minority of you who graduate from med school are naturally nocturnal.    If this truly describes you, consider exploiting your peculiarity by specializing in an acute care specialty with requisite night work;  and demand the  differential pay. If ER, hospitalist, or  ICU work interest you, exploit it to your advantage.

[Zaphod]

I dont buy it. There are proclivities but nothing beats routine. I would have described myself as nocturnal for 35+ years. However, simply getting a more consistent routine and waking up earlier I've become a total morning person over the last few years. I get tired pretty early now and wake up hours before I have to be anywhere, its amazing.

Routine and consistency are more important than some label we apply that fits the current situation. Also, its a gamble to assume anything about your later years as someone in their early 30s as well. You simply dont know.

Imo, you can use your younger more energetic years to take advantage of these kinds of things period, you will likely not want it even if capable later on in life.

[jz]

Zaphod,  your "proclivity" is to "routinely and consistently"  disagree with me.  Why is that ?

[Zaphod]

Lol, yes it does appear that way. I agreed with the sentiment on arbitrage and taking advantage, but not the idea that were an either or night/morning person and think it is a great idea. I mean, I totally thought I was a night owl for decades. Just meant dont let others labels or pop culture ideas trick you into thinking youre set one way and keep you from achieving because of it.

Isnt it much more interesting to engage something you take issue with than agree with? That usually garners a like, but not much interesting conversation. You just happened to "trigger" something I have thought about a lot lately as I "changed" to a morning person, just random really.

[Antares]

So this describes me well. I can force myself to get up early, but I strongly dislike it. Even more, I dislike going to bed early. Med school and residency were excruciating in this way. My solution works very well for me. (By the way, I'm 58 and I don't see any sign that I'm feeling any differently. Yet.)

I'm a psychiatrist in private practice. That's a field that attracts many patients who want to see me after work. I'd have a harder time maintaining a strong practice if I didn't have evening hours. So I happily sleep somewhere around 2:30 AM to 10:30 AM, and I work noon to 8 PM. This is my preferred schedule, and I am glad to be in a field that allows me to do it. Another alternative for the prospective physician night owl!

 

funnily the time stamp here says it's before 9 AM, which would never happen. Have to figure out how to change my time zone setting!

[The White Coat Investor]

Antares wrote:

So this describes me well. I can force myself to get up early, but I strongly dislike it. Even more, I dislike going to bed early. Med school and residency were excruciating in this way. My solution works very well for me. (By the way, I’m 58 and I don’t see any sign that I’m feeling any differently. Yet.)

I’m a psychiatrist in private practice. That’s a field that attracts many patients who want to see me after work. I’d have a harder time maintaining a strong practice if I didn’t have evening hours. So I happily sleep somewhere around 2:30 AM to 10:30 AM, and I work noon to 8 PM. This is my preferred schedule, and I am glad to be in a field that allows me to do it. Another alternative for the prospective physician night owl!

 

funnily the time stamp here says it’s before 9 AM, which would never happen. Have to figure out how to change my time zone setting!

Click to expand...

The times are all MST. It's on the list.

[HLM]

I'd describe myself as naturally nocturnal too.

I'm in my early 40s and ever since I was a teenager, if I don't have a schedule that makes me use an alarm clock to wake up, I tend to fall sleep between 2 and 4 am and wake up between 10 and noon. I can get myself on a normal daytime routine and it happened naturally when my kids were little and woke up early but it seems like my "natural clock" is a little bit shifted from most people.

I switched to being a nocturnist almost 5 years ago and love working the nights so much more than when I worked days as a hospitalist.

So, sure--anyone can reset their clock by routine. That's how most night shift workers are able to do their jobs--in my conversations with many of the nurses I work with at night, lots of them would never call themselves natural night owls and switch back to regular waking hours on their days off. And that's how for most of my life, I've lived on the typical daytime work schedule.

But I do agree with jz that there appears to be a natural tendency for people's sleep patterns that people gravitate to when they're alarm clock free. And if you can find work that fits with that schedule, definitely smart to exploit that advantage!

[hightower]

I just switched to a night schedule since I'm changing jobs over the next 3-6 months (used it as a way to leverage fewer days and more pay).  I expected to be miserable, but so far I'm kind of enjoying it.  I definitely have a problem with staying up too late and not sleeping well when I have to be up early.  So this has been kind of nice because I can go to bed whenever I feel like it and get up whenever I feel like it.  Plus the nights are kind of nice because they are busy for the first 3-4 hours, then pretty quiet the rest of the time.  Hence why I'm spending so much time on forums like this!

However, with that being said, it won't last long because the new job I'm likely going to take is a normal day schedule (9-5).  Plus my wife wants to have a kid, so no more sleeping in once that happens.

[YSH]

I also think I am naturally more nocturnal, but even more so, I am an introvert.  I think being both those things definitely drew me to my current job- I don't deal with admin much during my work hours (its not 8-5).  Also, there's less BS being pushed around during off hours, so as a clinician, its easier to get stuff done during the night time because there's just less people to get around. If a patient is sick enough to warrant urgent care, then urgent care they get. There's none of this, let's schedule it for X o'clock and wait for the whole planet (ancillary service/ personnel) to align before stuff can get rolling.

I do have concerns that perhaps abnormal hours do affect our health.  Isn't there always a new study every few months that gets thrown around that working off hours are bad for your heart, increased risk of cancer, etc etc.

No perfect balance.

 

[Antares]

"I do have concerns that perhaps abnormal hours do affect our health. Isn’t there always a new study every few months that gets thrown around that working off hours are bad for your heart, increased risk of cancer, etc etc."

 

Yes, it's possible, but I find that when required to maintain the mainstream schedule, I get significantly less sleep. So I'd like to believe that my health is better when I can stay on my preferred schedule.