A new lifestyle

I have always been the child that on my days off from high school, would find my self staying up until maybe 2 am and then sleeping past 10 am.  This was the norm.  It concerned me a little bit.  The school days always prooved a tough start at 6 am and I would regularly continue to hit snooze for about 20 minutes after the alarm went off.    College did not prove so difficult to awake, but still the weekends were times to stay up late.  There were a few all nighters in college studying for exams which prooved to break my mental health a little bit as those days progressed.  In Medical School, I found that I did not even sleep at all some of the nights before a few of my exams at the end of the semester.  Of course by the time my 3rd year hit, I was taking call for my medical or surgical or OB service and sometimes up until 3-4-5 am doing duties in the hospital and being called upon to work up new admissions or attend to the medical student duties associated with acute illness and ongoing medical care.  It was a less than difficult adaptation due to the previous hard nights of study that changed my mind I do believe to one that is capable of extended hours of attention, work and study.  Since 2000, I have found myself living in an unscheduled daily routine.  My hours have changed and I find that I am awake at various hours and asleep at others.   Its nice to get a full rest now.  However, due to the schedule I now keep, I will explain to you that this is now what is called a True Sleep Disorder.  It has been diagnosed by a sleep specialist with a diagnosis I had inquired about... namely Circaidian Rhythm Disorder- Free Running Type.  This means I dont sleep the routine 1030 pm to 7 am  by which most people feel accustomed.  I have taken a few medications over the years to try to modify this routine.   I once took Ambien for over a year and I found myself to sleep around Midnight routinely.  Not bad, however, I decided that I was concerned about the addictive and possibly mind altering effect of the Ambien.  I stopped it abruptly and for a week, my sleep varied.  I clearly went through withdrawl as I found myself in the afternoon laying down and shivering/shuddering and feeling a trembling of my abdominal musculature.  It was very unnerving.  After a week of this,  no more Ambien.  I do have a prescription for Lunesta now that I might take one every 3-4 months to try to force sleep earlier. It worked once or twice (though not that often).  If I have commitments at an early hour in the day, I might find myself staying up all night and then attending these.   My sleep has not changed much at all these years now.  This past 24 hour period, I found myself finding sleep around 6 am and sleeping through the day until maybe 4:30-5 pm.  This is the way I live today. I do not wish to force medications to change sleep.  I do now routinely take the melatonin derivitave, Rozerem which has been new these past few years.  Does it do anything for me?  I dont konw.  It does not get me to sleep at all and the duration of my sleeping intervals is usually anywhere from 5-10 hours varying daily.  I do believe that a melatonin supplement is not adverse in any way and consider that perhaps it might be a beneficial hormone that might even have positive effects on my mind development.  So I'll stick with it.