Being a medical student is one of the toughest times of your life, so it’s important you learn how to stay healthy in medical school. If you don’t take care of yourself, then you won’t be nearly as productive as you want to be. Stress makes you more susceptible to illness and injury, and burnout can truly mess with your psyche. Therefore, even when you feel like you don’t have time, you have to MAKE time to take care of you.
The most important thing to keep in mind is you can’t pour from an empty cup. That means, you can’t take care of others if you don’t first take care of you. This may mean saying no, or being okay with putting your needs first. Taking care of yourself should be a part of your everyday routine, not something you do when your exams are over. Start these habits early and make them non-negotiables. It’s important, and as soon as you give self-care the same priority as multiple passes of the lecture material, you’ll find yourself happier, more productive, and feeling like you can take on the world.
Knowing what burnout looks like
The first way to stay health in medical school is to know what burnout looks like. It’s important to recognize the general signs, and then what burnout looks like for you individually. That way, if you every begin to exhibit signs of burnout, you know it’s time to make a change.
Burnout can progress to depression, anxiety, and thoughts of suicide. Considering September is Suicide Prevention Month, it’s important to talk about the high rates of suicide in physicians and medical students. Burnout is a very serious state of mind, and can be difficult to distinguish from purse stress.
If you start to exhibit signs from the left side of the graphic, then it’s time to get help. Come up with your own list of ways you change when you start to feel burnt out. Keep this list with you, pinning it somewhere where you’ll see it. Then you can reflect on it often as sort of a self-check-in.
Sleep
Another important way to stay healthy during medical school is to sleep. Sleep deprivation is a tale as old as time in medical education. However, when you don’t sleep, you may be gaining more problems than what you’re solving by not sleeping. Sleep is vital for our cognitive, emotional and physical health. Sleep is responsible for:
- Memory consolidation and learning
- Muscle repair
- Sympathetic and parasympathetic management
- Digestion and metabolism
- Anti-inflammation
- Immune system boost
- Energy restoration
Without sleep, you will be more vulnerable to illness, have a poorer memory, and be less capable of learning. As someone whose entire day revolves around their ability to learn something, it’s important to make sure the body and brain are fully equipped to handle medical school curriculum.
It’s tempting to skip sleep because you don’t have time. But what’s better: half-assing through your flashcards, half asleep and getting nothing out of it, or taking time to sleep and losing time, but gaining enough energy and focus for the time to count? Missing out on sleep is not worth it, and this is coming from someone who has not pulled an allnighter since the first semester of year 1. You need all 7-9 hours.
Make sleep a non-negotiable. Go to sleep and wake up at the same time every day, including the weekends. This will help establish your sleep pattern in case you have trouble sleeping. Make sure your bedroom is free from distractions, electronics, light and sound. Your room should be cool and comfortable.
And most importantly, do not use your bed for anything but sleep and sex. It will confuse your brain if you study in your bed. Get out of your room to do everything until you are ready to close your eyes and go to sleep.
Fuel your body with good things
What you put in your body matters, especially if you want to stay healthy in medical school. It’s easy to get stressed and/or busy, so you eat whatever is available.
Not only is this not good for your (already) thin wallet. It’s also not good for your body. It’s easy to put on weight in medical school because you’re already stressed. Cortisol increases insulin resistance, making you crave sugary foods and have even more trouble dropping weight.
No matter how tired you are, be conscious about what you are putting in your body. Try to include vegetables with every meal, and limit yourself to one or two sugary/fried foods a week (this includes those specialty coffees).
You don’t have to be anal about tracking your meals, but limit your portions, and only eat when you’re hungry. Intentional eating is the practice of only eating when you’re hungry and paying attention to your food. Don’t mindless chew while watching videos or doing flashcards. Stop all other activities and just enjoy the ten minutes you have to eat your meal.
Food isn’t the only substance to watch
Fueling your body is not just about the foods you eat. Caffeine, alcohol, and even drugs are commonly used in medical school. And although they don’t seem like they are that problematic, in excess, they can be quite detrimental.
Caffeine is a staple in medical education. Having a cup or two a day is not the end of the world. But, each cup of coffee has an estimated 95 mg of caffeine. The safe upper limit of caffeine is 400 mg a day, meaning that more than 4 cups of coffee a day, or two energy drinks will likely put you over the edge. Caffeine is listed as a potential substance of abuse or addiction. Caffeine addiction is hard to recognize, but very possible.
Alcohol is another substance that could easily get out of hand. It’s important to recognize why you are drinking. If you are drinking because you had a really bad day, then that can put you at risk for developing a habit. There are going to be a lot of bad days, so it’s better to find another way to cope. Regardless of the reason, it’s always a good idea to take a break, and drinking alcohol does more harm, than good.
Drugs are another substance of which to be weary. Many medical students take some form of stimulant, like adderall. it’s important to know the side effect profile and limit your reliance on them. Marijuana and cocaine are other common drugs of abuse. All of these are habit-forming and their use can get out of hand quickly. Find healthier ways to cope and stay healthy in medical school.
Exercise
Exercise is one of those habits that waxes and wanes for me. I have periods where I am working out religiously, and others where I go weeks without exercising. Time is always an obstacle to working out, but exercise is something you must make time for.
It’s good for your body, mind, and sleep. Exercise can also be cathartic for some of the frustrations you may experience in your day-to-day. The most important rule for exercise is find the one that you will do. There is no best exercise. Each one serves their own purpose. But if you don’t like them, you won’t feel motivated to do them.
So if you’re not a runner, and don’t like running, then challenging yourself to go for a 5am run everyday is probably unrealistic. Movement, overall, is better than stagnation. Here are some great exercises that you can do as a medical student:
- HIIT
- Lifting
- Running
- Dance/Aerobics
- Pilates
- Boxing
- Kickboxing
- Orange Theory/Circuit workouts
- Barre
- Yoga
Try out a few different exercises and mix them up. Becoming bored with your workout also increases your risk for quitting them. You can have and end goal of weight loss or a target max weight. But don’t let that be the only reason, for if you experience any setback, you may feel discouraged and quit working out. Make your primary goal to keep moving and stay healthy.
Do things you enjoy
There is this myth in medical school that once you begin, your life sucks until you finish. While aspects of your life may not be the greatest, your life is what you make it. Everything is about perspective. If you choose not to engage in activities you enjoy, then of course they are going to have a terrible time.
But if you create fun opportunities for yourself, then your time in medical school won’t be all doom and gloom. Doing things you enjoy is vital for helping you stay healthy in medical school. Keep up your hobbies as they provide you with excellent distractions from how hard school is.
I have many activities in which I engage outside of school, and they actually drive me to be a better student. I get excited about my blog, research, and my extracurriculars. But I also understand that school comes first. Therefore, I do what I need to do in school, so I can do what I want to do after. This provides me with motivation, excitement, and something to look forward to at the end of everyday.
Take breaks
Again, you may feel like there is absolutely no time to take breaks or do anything fun. But that is not true. In fact, never taking breaks is counterproductive to your studies. I prefer to take Sundays off, so I make sure that I get everything done Saturday so I can spend Sunday doing whatever I want. Some of my classmates don’t take any days off, but they have days that are lighter than others.
Whatever distribution you prefer, make sure that you have ons and offs. And when you’re off, really be off (whatever your definition of that may be). It’s unsustainable, and quite frankly unnecessary, to be on all the time.
Not only is it important to take breaks within the week, but within your school year. You may not be able to afford to take a full week off, but if your schools has breaks (spring, winter, summer) take advantage of them. Because when you get to your third year, those breaks no longer exist, and before you know it, you’ll be a working professional who has to take sick and vacation days.
The best way to get adequate breaks is to pace yourself. Do a manageable about of work each week, that way you don’t get to your exam week and require all nighters to get caught up.
Speak up when you need help
Another way to stay healthy in medical school is to speak up when you’re struggling. Struggling in medical school is expected, but that doesn’t mean that have to struggle in silence. There is a sort of pride that takes over, especially year one, where you don’t want to appear dumb. But, I’m here to tell you that you will in no way, shape, or form be the only one struggling.
Find someone to talk to, whether that’s a classmate, faculty or staff member. All medical schools have access to mental health and academic planning resources. It’s better to talk to the professionals who can guide you in the right direction, than to try to figure it out yourself. You’ve never done medical school before, why would you try and do it all alone?
There is nothing in this world we do completely on our own. The sooner you realize that, the better you will be. If your toxic trait is never asking for help, then you need to find a way to suppress that. Being proud will do more harm than good. So get over yourself and ask for help now before you drown and put yourself in an unfixable position.
Delegate tasks
You do not have to be a superhero. Especially the women out there. You don’t have to be class president, chef, maid, and study group leader. Learn to delegate tasks so you have more time to do what you need to do.
If you can hire help, then there is no shame. For the rest of us loan-dependent people, ask your partner, spouse, and family if they can help you every now and then with things around the house. See if you can budget for meal prep programs so you don’t have to worry about cooking or hire a babysitter to watch the kids so you can study. Find ways to offload some of your everyday duties so you can take your time with school.
When it comes to academics, delegation is very important. Being a good classmate and team player helps everyone. As the leader of an organization, let the other members take the lead on certain activities so you don’t always take on the brunt of everything. It’s part of leadership development, encouraging others to do their part and providing them assistance when they need it. This may even require holding others accountable when they don’t do their share. Will things get done exactly how you want them to? No. But, that’s the best part about working as a team. Different approaches come together to create something you may not have even imagined.
Prioritize accordingly
As someone who is very goal-oriented, it’s easy to pressure myself into thinking I have to accomplish all of my goals right now, right this second. But this simply isn’t true. And for me to stay healthy in medical school, it’s essential to keep that at the front of my mind.
Prioritize your life so you are attending to the most urgent matters at the present, and placing less urgent matters on the backburner. Everytime I get an idea, I just write it down and leave it until I can attend to it. This gets it out of my head and prevents me from becoming fixated on pursuing it because I don’t want to forget it. At the end of the day, the idea isn’t going anywhere, and I will pursue it when I have time.
Things with upcoming deadlines are what I focus on, taking them one at a time. This helps prevent me from feeling so overwhelmed that I end up not getting anything done. Around exam time, preparing for my test is my priority. When my exam is over, and we are at the beginning of a new block, I tend to focus on my extracurriculars. If I have an upcoming abstract deadline, then I do my best to meet that before turning my focus to something else.
This approach doesn’t always allow me to be super proactive, turning things in weeks ahead of deadlines. But it does allow me to appropriately pace myself so I’m productive without feeling overworked.
Learn to set boundaries
Repeat after me, “Thank you for the offer, but that is not the best thing for me to do at this time.” Saying no is hard, and it comes with a lot of guilt. But self-preservation is necessary for your to stay healthy in medical school. You may want to take on every task and opportunity that comes your way. But if you become so overtaken by these tasks that you can’t get any of them done, are you actually doing any good? Probably not.
It’s okay to say no. You don’t want to say no all the time, but there are certain times when you should say no. Choose a couple of times to say yes to making memories with your friends, and going out with your classmates. But say no when you really need the rest.
This is not the time to be a people pleaser to your own detriment. Training to become the best doctor you can be is a service in itself. Anything extra is just that, extra. If you need a rest day, take it. If you simply cannot take on any more obligations, then decline those that come your way until you are in a space to do so.
If setting boundaries is hard for you, practice saying no in the mirror every morning until you become better at it. You shouldn’t feel some type of way, and if someone makes you, it’s most likely because they miss you. So schedule time when it’s convenient for you so you spend time with them on a schedule that works for you.
Main takeaways
If you want to stay healthy in medical school, the most important start is knowing yourself. What do you look like when you’re okay, and what do you look like when you’re not okay? What are some things you like to do, and how can you organize yourself so you engage in those activities? These are reflection questions to ask yourself at least one a week. Do a self-check-in to make sure that you’re good. And as soon as you’re not, seek help. Staying healthy doesn’t have to be an impossible task, but it does require effort, intention, and conscientiousness.
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