I'm a research psychologist who is currently seeking a new academic job for Fall 2008. In this career, it's pretty typical to have to do extra work at home at night. While on the job market, it's atypical NOT to have to work from home at night after working a full day. Taking work home has always been difficult for me for the usual range of predictable reasons, and I generally avoid doing it as much as possible.

It's now entirely necessary that I work productively during the evening hours. Thus far it's not going extremely well, probably mostly due to the fact that my afternoon dose of IR ritalin has fully worn off by the time I've eaten dinner and am ready to start working again. So, I'm posting here to ask others how they do it, in order to come up with my own plan for productive work at home at night.

If you are able to work at home at night, how do you do it?

Perhaps more importantly, are you medicated while you work in the evening? If yes, can you then sleep at night once you've stopped working?

I'm toying with the idea about talking to my doc about a lower 4th dose of ritalin on the days I need to work into the evening. In the past, however, she's been less supportive of this because of sleep concerns (i.e., I need to get sleep and don't perform up to par if it's disrupted or reduced).

Apologies if this should have been posted to the meds form... it's really a cross-domain issue!

Hi there!
First I must say that being a research psychologist must be an incredibly interesting job. I am so interested in what others do. I used to think it was because I had some "grass is greener, I want to do that too" issue, and to some extent I do ask to sort of cull ideas, but as a writer I think I just love to know the intracacies of what people do so I can build more believable characters, etc.

Anyway, right now I am having a terribly hard time with fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue, and so I have been working from home for a little over a year. Last academic year I was also finishing my masters degree, so I worked from home and had school work.

My job is transcription at the moment, and because of the severe fatigue I currently have, I have to adjust my hours to when I work best, which means I work "a little bit" throughout the day and at night. I take Adderall, and found that splitting it up to 3 or 4 times a day does help me keep my focus into the later evenings and nights that I have to work.

It does interfere with sleep, however. I experimented with different doses and found that just an extra 5 mg around 7pm gives me enough focus to get work done at night, even though more would definitely work better.

I was taking 5mg melatonin about an hour and a half before bed and it was helping but then stopped working. I switched to Tylenol PM but that stuff knocks me out for at least 12 hours, so I can't take it. So now I'm trying Unisom, and we'll see how that works. I am trying to avoid getting a prescription sleep aid from my doctor, and hopefully I won't have to work like this forever, but for now this is how I deal.

If something like melatonin will work for you, then possibly adding a small extra dose of med later in your day could help. Good luck!

Thanks for your reply. I will have to talk to my doc about adding a small dose around 6 pm just so I can get through the next couple of weeks without too much extra stress.

I don't do so well with melatonin (makes me SO depressed the next day) but occasionally have benefitted from kava kava. Maybe this will be worth a try?

Yeah, I'm bummed the melatonin stopped working for me. I've never tried kava, but it's worth a shot if you know you don't have any kind of bad reaction to it. I've also heard good things about Valerian Root for sleep, but I don't know anything about it. I tend to shy away from these things until I feel like I know enough about them, but maybe others have better info on it.

Consider adding exercise.

e.g. 30 mins of cardio + 30 mins of weights & stretching

Thanks for your reply. I will have to talk to my doc about adding a small dose around 6 pm just so I can get through the next couple of weeks without too much extra stress.

I don't do so well with melatonin (makes me SO depressed the next day) but occasionally have benefitted from kava kava. Maybe this will be worth a try?
Where do you get Kava? I was in Hawaii 6 months ago and my brother in law tried it at a Kava bar. Said it was similiar to a benzo like valium but completely natural. I thought you could only buy in Hawaii?

You can buy it on Amazon, but I've seen it around my area at regular places like Vitamin World and Vitamin Shoppe. It looks pretty easy to get, but expensive if you take it regularly!

Where do you get Kava? I was in Hawaii 6 months ago and my brother in law tried it at a Kava bar. Said it was similiar to a benzo like valium but completely natural. I thought you could only buy in Hawaii?I've never taken any benzo for any reason, so I can't compare the two... but 2 gelcaps doesn't make me too relaxed or sleepy. It just helps all the mid-clutter go away at night. It can have bad liver-related side-effects (e.g., in rare instances, some people have died from taking it), so it's not a long-term solution by any means.... and this goes without saying, but it needs to be cleared with one's med-managing doc!


You can buy it on Amazon, but I've seen it around my area at regular places like Vitamin World and Vitamin Shoppe. It looks pretty easy to get, but expensive if you take it regularly! I bought my bottle at a natural food co-op.

Consider adding exercise.

e.g. 30 mins of cardio + 30 mins of weights & stretchingQueensU_girl, I know you mean well, and I really don't mean this in an argumentative way... at any other time, this would be a good option, but right now it's just out of the question. I'll definitely act on your suggestion in the future, however!

You said you don't do well with melatonin supplements ... have you tried 5-HTP, which supposedly (if I understand it correctly) increases serotonin production, making more available to manufacture your own melatonin?

This is my biggest struggle with stimulants - I function so much better all day, but I'm already a natural night owl, so there's no biological impetus to go to bed and the meds make it even easier to stay awake FAR too long. It's one reason I went off my Adderall for several months, but then all my other dysfunctional habits reappeared and my life was getting to be a great big mess again, so I recently went back on.

I read about 5-HTP somewhere on these boards as well as other sites ... I've started taking the smallest dose (50 mg) each night about 1/2 hour before I want to go to sleep, and I think it's helping. I do seem to drop off a little quicker than I normally would - it's not unusual for me to lay there staring into the dark if I try to go to sleep before my mind is ready. I just don't get sleepy until after midnight!

Good luck - come back and post if you find something that works, because I'm always looking for options. I have to be very careful not to take any Adderall after 1-2 pm, or I will be up all night. But then I don't get much done at night, because all the focus/motivation part has worn off, leaving just the wide-awake, Solitaire playing hyper-focuser.