The first two days in the new old job went well, though things are a little bit different than they were last summer; a bit more structured about breaks and such, more like the usual call-center than the relaxed place it was. They've changed the responsibilities of the position some, too, in ways making it easier, but those changes make it a bit duller, too. Oh well, it's not to be helped.
More troubling than anything is the change to my working hours-they've scheduled me 9:30 to 6 p.m., quite a change from what I'm accustomed to. I have the habit of rising very early, usually between 4 and 5 a.m., and therefore I tend to retire early, around 9 p.m. or so. Last week I tried to get my internal clock to reset, but it was a bit futile. A couple of days won't suffice, and as I thought about it this weekend, I began thinking, "why bother?" I'll only be in this job for about two months, and then I'll be going back to school. There, I go in around 6:30 a.m. and leave about 3 p.m., hours that suit me fine. And it's not like I have any kind of social life in the evenings; I suppose the only downside to keeping my early schedule is the tediousness of waiting around in the morning to go in to work. Once I'm there, it's just a matter of dealing with my readiness to call it a day around 3 p.m.
Back in my collegiate days I had to contend with a various and ever-changing schedule. Originally I worked nights, went to school during the day, and snatched what sleep I could whenever. My employer confounded things somewhat by changing my shift assignment periodically, throwing me onto first shift, requiring I change my classes to nights and weekends. Over the course of my degree work I got bounced from first to third and back again about 5 times; it always took a couple of weeks to get acclimated to new hours. I recall reading a study done about adjusting circadian rhythms and as I recall that week or two was about average for most folks to make a major adjustment in sleeping-waking cycles.
So, why try to kill my old habit of early-rising, when I would just need to start readjusting in a month or so? Perhaps I would be better served by trying to find things to keep me engaged in the empty morning hours until my shift begins?
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I've never been one of those people with a static internal clock. I can adjust to any schedule in 2 days and never know the difference. While I was working I got up about 5 am during the week but slept till 10 on the weekends. Changing my sleep pattern is a matter of going to bed whenever I get sleepy and getting up when needed. Shifting to 5 am Monday meant I went to bed Sunday night around 2 am because I slept that morning till 10. I'd get up with 3 or 4 hours sleep Monday which meant I was tired early Monday night. 5 am Tuesday was easy because I'd gone to bed early over only getting 4 hours sleep the night before.
ReplyDeleteGetting 3 or 4 hours sleep for a couple of nights doesn't bother me at all. I can't really tell any difference until 4 nights out.
Now that I'm retired I don't have a schedule so my body settles to it's normal sleep cycle, which for me, runs on a 25 hour day. In other words I get sleepy at 11 tonight and 12 tomorrow and 1 the next day. If you were to put me in a cave with no clocks my sleep time would slowly rotate an hour per day until I was going to bed at 2 in the afternoon.
So once or twice a week I have to reset my schedule by getting up early to break the cycle.
My brother on the other hand is a slave to his internal clock. He gets up at 6 am come hell or high water. At 11 he zonks out no matter what he's doing. You'll just look over and he's asleep. After being retired for 3 years he can't change it and has never been able to sleep past 6 although his wife sleeps till 9.
Everyone seems to be different, some with more flexibility than others.
In his autobiography, Frank Zappa talks about his rotating internal clock, like yours. His seemed to start about the time he created his first home studio; being right there, he would work progressively later into the night and early morning, rising later each successive day until he was surprised to find himself unexpectedly on the same day/night schedule as his family and would be unable to work in peace!
ReplyDeleteMy wake/sleep routine was pretty much born of the lifestyle change when I graduated from college; after spending 5 years perpetually sleep-deprived, and finally working a normal 8-5 office hours routine, I vowed I would get 8 hours sleep every night that I wanted it! With few exceptions I've slept 8 hours a night since; sometimes not all at once, I occasionally catch a couple hours nap in the afternoon or early evening when I want to stay up late, then only sleeping 5 hours or so, but inevitably, by 4-5 a.m., I am rested and when my eyes pop open there's no use trying to go back to sleep. So I just get up. So, for me, it's not so much the particular hours as it is that 8-in-24 hour ratio by body seems to have learned.