What are circadian rhythms? We just don't know.

[wallwalker]

It's the strangest thing.

For years I worked early mornings. It was okay, you know? I would get to work early, leave early, and feel pretty okay about the whole thing.

Then last year I was switched over to working... if not overnight, at least late nights. And we all groaned about it, because we weren't used to it. But it was all right for me in the end, because I got more time to spend with my SO, who tends to stay up late into the night for no apparent reason.

At that point, the powers that be decided that for some reason the overnight thing wasn't working out, and switched us back to early mornings. I wake up at half-past four my time every morning, head to work at six, and I'm done by three most days. It doesn't sound so bad, and it's what I did for years before the change, but I just can't seem to do it anymore. I'm walking around dead every morning, yawning constantly, running the risk of dozing off if I as much as stay still or lean against something for a few seconds too long. I generally have to nap during my lunch hour just to get through the day, and sometimes I fall asleep during my fifteen-minute break, too. When I get home I'm usually too exhausted to do anything much for the rest of the night, but when I actually try to go to bed, no matter how tired I am, I can't sleep!

So I'm on vacation this week, and still went to bed fairly early last night - ten-ish, I think. I woke up briefly again at seven or so, because I was trying to make sure that my SO made it out of the house to a LARP event. I tried to stay up - I was hungry, I should've at least been able to motivate myself to eat something - but I was so tired that I decided to go back and nap for an hour or so.

I slept until almost two in the afternoon and felt about a million times better.

And now? I feel great. I didn't get as much exercise done as I would've liked, but aside from that I had a very productive day. I got two thousand words of a second draft of a short story finished. I got out of the house and hung out with friends. I just finished playing a bit of SWTOR (maybe an hour or so.) It's one in the morning here, and I feel fantastic, wide awake and ready to do something... although there's still the nagging thought that I would have to be awake three hours from now on a work day, and I shouldn't get used to it.

Except I already AM used to it - isn't that the problem? I have no idea how I managed to completely reprogram my circadian rhythms over a period of a few months, to a point that they remained programmed that way after an even longer period of trying to go back to the same routine I followed for years, but I did. Somehow, over those few months that I stayed up until two or so at my job, my body has gotten so used to that schedule that it outright seems to be resisting any attempts to change it.

But my morning job can't be gotten rid of anytime soon, and even if I found another job it would probably involve day-shift hours. I'm going to have to deal with this somehow. I just... don't know how. And I'm honestly baffled at the whole thing.

(tl;dr - my body wants me to work swing shift and I have to work day shift, help)

Comments

[vilkacis]

I go through phases like that sometimes, except I suddenly want to start waking up much earlier instead. It sucks, but at least for me, it generally resets itself after a couple of weeks. Hopefully it works that way for you, too.

[wallwalker]

Sadly, it's been another month and my body is still insisting that I need to be awake until at least midnight. Bodies are weird.

I've been trying to even find another job that'll give me those hours; I had two interviews but no offers. At this point I've even asked my employer if I can go to a different position. It'll probably mean fewer hours in practice, but also a lot less BS in general, and definitely fewer ridiculously early mornings. At this point, I think it's worth it.

[stealth_noodle]

I work afternoons/evenings for nine months out of the year and traditional day hours for the other three, and my coping mechanism is coffee, pretty much. That and loads of chamomile tea to try to put myself down at a reasonable hour. Exercise timing is important for me, too; as long as I work out as soon as I get home from work, I can be reasonably tired by bedtime. If I put it off until after dinner, I have no hope of getting to sleep before midnight.

Bodies are strange.

[lassarina]

^ this. Caffeine (in my case, black tea) resets all my rhythms as necessary (I only just realized this week that the reason I am so fucking dead every night when I get home is because I cut my midday caffeine. No more doing THAT.) NPR did a great series on coffee this week and the takeaway is that unless you are a person who reacts really badly to caffeine, then as long as you're at less than 6 cups a day you are probably fine. (There was also an interesting note that people who are depressive tend to benefit A LOT from caffeine, whereas people who are anxious do not. I am both, whee fun life!, but I get more benefit from having caffeine than not having it.

[wallwalker]

I'm currently guzzling caffeine to stay awake at work, although I can't tolerate black coffee for some reason. I should learn how, because drinking all of this soda is a terrible idea and I know it.

The other weird thing is, the caffeine only helps about half the time. I don't understand it! Sometimes it helps a lot, sometimes I can drink a bottle of soda and still almost doze off at work. And sometimes I don't have the soda (you know how workplace fridges are) or the money to buy it, and it doesn't work out well.

[lassarina]

Can you tolerate tea? Brewed correctly, black tea can have almost as much caffeine as coffee. I prefer my tea quite sweet, but even then, if it's sweetened with real sugar (I use demerara, which is more expensive but much less refined than white sugar, and tastes really nice) it's probably still less brutal than HFCS. In the summer, I brew gallons at a time of sweet tea and drink ~12 oz in the morning, which gets me started quite nicely.

[wallwalker]

I don't know, to be honest. My only exposure to tea has been restaurant sweet tea and my grandmothers' sweet tea, which is very much like restaurant sweet tea. I can look into it, though. :)

[lassarina]

Lipton's basic black tea is pretty decent to start; it's cheap, and if you decide you like it you can theoretically branch out into the flavored kind. I find black tea really bitter on its own, but sugar fixes that problem. XD

[wallwalker]

Now that the days are getting longer, I'll try to get more regular exercise and see if it helps. (I have somehow developed a recurring pain in my foot that I need to check out, though, because I don't want to make it worse in the name of health.)

Caffeine is hit or miss for me, and the only way that I can stand to drink it is either in soda or in coffee with lots of sugar, both of which I know are bad (let's not even discuss my current fitness outlook right now. Ugh.) I actually caved in and looked for Vivarin at the grocery store not long ago, to see if I could just take a pill as needed and maybe wean myself off of all of the sugar. At the time I didn't find it, just about ten different kinds of energy drinks. I should go to a dedicated pharmacy and try again.