Nocturnal studying?

[Pasmal]

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I'm seriously considering going/staying completely nocturnal for step 1 studying.

My class schedule kind of prevents me from doing that during the year, but with my dedicated time I can do it how I want to do it.

Whenever I'm allowed free reign of my schedule it always shifts to nocturnal. My circadian rhythms are so screwy from 8-10am commitments that I'm always trying to straighten myself out to the normal day/night routine most people do.

For step 1, I figure I might as well let my schedule do what it wants and study when I study best (when the rest of the world quiets down for a bit).

I have family members who did this in med school and were successful, for whatever that's worth.

Currently my schedule is wake by 4pm, study till 10-12, 2 hr break, study till 5-7 ish, sleep 8-9 am (still have school exams coming up but no classes left just a week of study time before our last final). This is too intense for step obviously, just saying what I'm doing now for the amazing week-before-finals cram-fest.

Seems to be working well so far. I'm getting way more done than I have all year. Anyone else had experience with this? Comments? Feels kinda silly/weird and the lady friend thinks I'm nuts but whatever works I guess!

 

[sloop]

Yikes.

I think I also naturally run on an ~25 hr clock or so. Left unregulated, I also drift later and later into the night.

Obviously do what's good for you but I can tell you that plan would be dreadful for me. There were a couple of considerations that came to mind:

1) You might be nocturnal, but my guess is that nobody else you know really is (at least not to that extent). Do you plan on not spending time with friends, a significant other (if you have one), or family (if they live close)? Unless you're totally antisocial, you're gonna need to hang out with other people and they're simply not going to accommodate your weird-ass schedule. That basically means that if you want to grab lunch with your friends, you're going to be getting like 3 hours of sleep that night. If you want to go to the bar with a friend, you're probably going to be waking up and drinking within 3 or 4 hours.

2) I don't remember seeing 4pm as a testing time at any of the centers.

3) If you're like me, there will probably be an occasional moment where you're having a really great, productive study session when you get hungry for dinner and suddenly realize that you forgot to buy groceries. At least if you're on a normal schedule, you can order a pizza or something. Depending on where you live, if your dinner occurs at the break of dawn, there might be limited options.

These are just some of the things I was thinking about.

Again, do what you think is best but it sounds like a disaster to me personally.

 

[neverenoughtime]

I was like this for a good month, and I realized that Waking up at 3-4pm everyday really made me feel quite lethargic and sluggish after a few weeks. As the person before me did make a valid point about the exam not being at 4pm, I do not see that as a big problem as there are prometric centers which offer the step 1 exam at 12pm to 8pm. You would have to tweak your sleeping schedule at least a week a before so that you are prepared to take your exam. I do however believe in the adrenaline rush that kicks in on exam day, so .......I guess its really not that big of a deal. You will end up getting some sunshine anyways for at least 4 hours as sunset in the summer is around 8pm -830pm in june and july. If you are going to go nocturnal, I am assuming you are going to be going hardcore balls out study sessions. If that is the case, then who cares about the social outings (who has time for that), you could totally do all of that later on after the exam (you do have three weeks to ponder over how you might have failed or passed) so try to enjoy your time off then unless you are going straight into clinicals after the exam.

***bottom line.....if you dont mind feeling sluggish, you keep yourself healthy and hydrated, and dont care or completely isolate yourself from the public other than the occasional workout during the middle of the night, then go for it!!! I personally suggest that you wake up at 10am everyday and go to sleep at 3am. try to keep this schedule if possible. that way you can also select at 12pm testing session and you will be good to go.

 

[Pasmal]

Thanks to both of you for the advice. I definitely stay active but have to make sure I avoid getting depressed or sluggish. I find it's easy to become apathetic about studying at night when nobody else is doing anything, so that's definitely something to fight (reminding myself how screwed I'll be if I slack).

I have a few friends who do this too so as far as social interaction it could be worse.

But yeah when I'm in that room it's go-time, I'll take one solid break around 12 but I'm hammering away otherwise. I have some attention disorders in my fam and though I can usually focus really really well, sometimes all the commotion of people walking around throws me off. So owning my study space at night is a definite plus in that sense.

I'll try it out for a week after this exam and see how things go. There won't be many people around (hopefully) anyways so maybe daytime will work if I can force myself to keep that schedule.