Blog Post Focus
I will write my thoughts on life balance for aspiring medical students and how to balance this stage of life. It is difficult–at least it was for me!
Introduction: The Challenge of Balance
Balancing life as a prospective medical student is challenging. You have friends you want to keep up with, classes you need to keep up with, personal fitness goals, desired leisure activities, resume-building experiences, and more to do. It may seem like you don’t have enough time for sleep. Or maybe you do prioritize sleep, but you can’t find enough time to maintain fitness. Or maybe your self-care is good, but your friends seem to be slipping away. Undergraduate studies can be intense and overwhelming and quite a burden. Most people are probably not balancing life and are feeling stressed out about a lot of things.
Pre-Health Students and Life Balance
For prospective medical students it can be extra difficult during undergraduate studies because you have a lot of expectations on yourself and external pressures too. First, you have to prove to yourself and the school you can handle whatever studies they require. Atop this you have to keep building your resume. Then, you have to be diligent about what programs you desire and how best to get into them.
Friends and family with lesser expectations won’t necessarily understand your drive and commitment toward a possible medical education. Friends and family in competitive fields and in medicine themselves may place a high burden on you and make you fear you can never do enough. Both are rough.
Your Life Will Be Unbalanced & Realities of Attempting Balance
Firstly, it is okay to be unbalanced at times. You do what you need to do when you can do it. That is adult life. It may be ideal to have a life of balance, but it will never always be balanced. Especially once you get into medical school and residency. Professional demands rarely allow a well-balanced life for all things during medical education.
Secondly, we can usually do a lot better than we suspect. Most people are feeling overwhelmed with things during undergraduate studies if they are aiming for competitive fields. We need to be realistic with how others are feeling and be okay that generally people are not always okay and on top of things. We need to be realistic with how we are feeling and meet our most pressing needs and work toward meeting all our needs as able.
Thirdly, each person has different strong suits and weaknesses. You likely know them. You may be unaware of others. Check in with yourself to better understand your strengths and weaknesses as this can give you invaluable insight to help yourself meet your needs in the future.
Fourthly, let’s get into some thoughts on how to balance life. A balanced life includes physical domains, emotional domains, social domains, and mental domains and addressing the needs of each domain.
A Balanced Life
Physical Domains
For physical domains I refer to movement and exercise. It is not good to be cramped up all day. We need to move. We need to move regularly. If you are stooped over a computer or books studying all day then you need to make sure you take breaks. When your body is feeling the need to move, try to let it move. Whatever activities you prefer, whether they be resistance training or aerobic activity, or stretching is fine. Don’t push through pain and move when your body wants to move are reasonable guides to avoid hurting yourself.
Emotional Domains
When I say emotional domains I mean how we are feeling internally. We can’t just bottle up all our emotions and ignore them. Neither can we let our emotions drive us into ridiculous experiences. To be emotionally balanced we need to acknowledge our emotions and why we feel that way and act in accordance. If we feel angry, we feel disrespected or as though injustice has been done to us. We need to address the anger. When we feel sad we feel as though we are missing something we need. So, we need to address our sadness. So on and so forth for each emotion.
Social Domains
When I say social domains I refer to our social circles. We need support. We need time for leisure and pleasure. Family and friends and significant others are our go to for support and leisure and pleasure. We can’t indulge them every time, but we can’t push off our relationships indefinitely. It can be hard to make friends, relatively easy to maintain them, and it can take a lot to break a powerful bond. Reach out to friends and family every now and then. Even if you feel like they should reach out to you first…sometimes it falls on you to maintain the bond.
Try to meet up with friends and loved ones when possible. If you can’t then let them know why. Remember, every time you reject someone to hang out then it is still a rejection. If you are rude or simply never available then people will stop asking and getting rejected. Do your best to reschedule if possible to maintain relationships.
Mental Domains
Finally, I talk about mental domains. Studying is like exercise. Good study habits stimulate our learning. Bad study habits can hurt us with stress and frustration and demotivate us. Figure out how much studying you can realistically stand. Give yourself breaks as needed. Often, high achievers may push through extra hours of studying with little reward and push off meeting with friends and families. Sometimes a break is what we need from study and time with family and friends motivates us to study again. Do your best to build strong study habits and to understand how much studying you really can stand.
Other Domains
Some people think of spiritual domains and other domains. You can probably think of several more than what I listed. Whatever areas of life you consider important you need to meet them. Pray if it is important to you. Meditate if it is important to you. Do whatever you need to do.
Conclusion – How to Balance Life as a Prospective Medical Student…
Address each of your needs in each domain as able. Do whatever you need to do when you are able to do it.
In reality, your life won’t be perfectly balanced. It doesn’t need to be. However, balance life as much as you can. Shift around priorities as needed. You may be able to save stress and time and frustration by realigning priorities and understanding your needs better. It likely won’t be perfect, but you may find ways to make it better.
Leave a Comment
Leave a comment on anything you would like me to discuss regarding the medical education journey, my own experience, or anything you would like me to cover.