Self Care Strategies for Busy Medical Student

Everyone has heard the saying ‘in order to look after other people, you need to be able to look after yourself’. In a degree that is incredibly full on and at times all consuming, it is even more important to look after yourself so that you can look after patients too. If you look up self-care posts on social media, you will be inundated with influencers talking about special juices, morning pilates or eating greens. However, self-care is about a lot more than the aesthetics. True self-care involves finding a balance between work and enjoyment as well as nourishing your mind and body. It can be hard to find the time to balance everything in such a demanding degree, so here is a list of self-care strategies for people with very busy lives.

Physical Self Care

Eating nourishing food

To have enough energy and fully engage in placement or lectures, it is important to properly fuel your body. While including foods that are healthy, this also includes foods that you enjoy.

Tips for managing this:

• Plan your meals ahead and write a list of foods you need before you go to the shop. That way you will be prepared to make dinner as soon as you get home in the evening.

•  Make foods that you enjoy and you look forward to eating- there’s nothing worse than being tired after placement and having a dinner that you don’t really want to eat.

• Bulk cook so you have extra meals for the rest of the week. You can also freeze extra portions to eat on busy days when you don’t have time to cook from scratch.

•  Hospital canteens are often quite cheap and can be a good lunch option if you are on placement and want a hot and ready-made meal.

• Mind Health has a recipe book full of meal ideas and recipes that are nourishing and also quick to cook. It can be found at: https://www.mindhealthuk.org/recipe-guide

Get enough sleep

Getting enough sleep is incredibly important for your memory and mood. Getting enough sleep will allow you to retain information from lectures and give you enough energy for studying. Tips for getting a good night sleep:

• Try and stick to a routine of going to bed and waking up at similar times each day.

• Don’t snooze your alarm- get up as soon as it goes off. If you keep snoozing, you teach yourself that you don’t actually need to wake up when your alarm goes off and it makes it a lot harder to eventually wake up.

• Have something to look forward to when you wake up e.g. your favourite breakfast. This will make it much easier to get out of bed.

•  Create a cozy environment- putting up some fairy lights can make your room feel much more calming. Small changes like this can make it easier to wind down in the evening.

Exercise

Exercise is a big factor in health, but it also can improve cognitive function and boost your mood. Not only will you get the health benefit, but exercise can also relieve stress and anxiety. Tips for introducing exercise into your schedule: 

• Take part in exercise you enjoy- you’re much more likely to do exercise that you want to do.

• Join sports clubs- lots of medical schools have medic sports societies which have training at better times for busy medical students.

• Work out or play sports with friends. Not only will this keep you accountable, it can also make it more fun!

• Use free apps, such as Couch to 5K, and YouTube videos for workouts and tips.

Mental and Emotional Self Care

Hobbies

It is important to take time to enjoy yourself as well as revising. Examples of this can be going on hikes, crocheting or playing an instrument. Tips for incorporating this into your schedule:

•  Be organised and plan ahead so you have enough time for thing you enjoy

• Weekends are often a good time for hobbies that take longer. Put these in your calendar in advance to prioritise them.

•  Find hobbies that can be done during your lunch break, such as reading or sketching, and bring your materials to placement to use at lunch.

• Try not to feel guilty for spending time doing fun things rather than revising. You will be able to focus a lot better and feel more motivated in lectures or on placement if you also have time for things you enjoy.

Creativity

Most people go into medicine because they excel academically and have never spent time learning or studied any creative subjects. However, anyone can enjoy being creative and the fun is found in the process, not just in the end product. Being good at creative exploits is a bonus, not a requirement to enjoy them. Here are some ideas of creative things to try for beginners and experts alike:

• Drawing- access to paper and pencils is very cheap and easy to get hold of. You can also spend as much or as little time as you like on drawing or sketching. Some people also enjoy having colouring books which can be very relaxing.

• Painting- this requires more equipment than just drawing, but you can easily get paints and canvas from local craft shops or online. There are also many painting tutorials online for people just getting started, or paint by numbers for people who want a guide. 

• Music- there are so many different ways to enjoy music, from listening to it by yourself, going to concerts or learning to play an instrument. There are also many different genres to try and there is no limit to how many different styles of music you can like. If you are lucky enough to be able to play an instrument, it can also be very relaxing and rewarding to learn new music or revisit old favourites.  

• Dance- while dancing overlaps with exercise, it can also be a very creative and expressive activity. There are many different styles of dance and ways to learn, from online tutorials to social classes. 

• Crocheting/ knitting- crocheting is very popular at the moment! There are countless tutorials online and it can be easy and cheap to get a crocheting hook and some wool. Knitting is also very fun and it can be rewarding to knit your own clothes. 

• Clay/ pottery- whether at a pottery studio or making clay figures in your room, it can be very fulfilling to create something from scratch. There are also lots of studios that allow you to paint pottery or other objects and this can be fun with friends or by yourself!

Journaling

Different journaling styles work for different people, and some people don’t find that journaling works for them at all! Journaling can be helpful in getting all your thoughts out either before bed or when you need a rant. Alternatively, you can journal about fun and positive experiences. Here are some tips to get started:

• Journaling about your day in the evenings. This can be helpful to process everything that happened in the day and clear your mind before bed.

• Scrap booking/ travel journals- it can be fun to keep old tickets or photos in a scrap book to look back on in the future.

• Journaling the good moments so that you can look back on them and remember things that you enjoyed.

• Ranting and journaling about negative emotions to let them out and work through them.

•  Common place book- this is a notebook (or note on your phone) where you write down anything that you want to remember or find meaningful. These can be quotes, recipes, sketches or observations of the world.

Friendships

Feeling lonely has been linked to many negative mental health outcomes, such as increased anxiety and low mood, but it has also been shown to increase risk of physical health conditions such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Here are some ways you can introduce more time with friends:

•  Revising together- as medical students, we can’t get away from spending lots of time revising, but it can often be more enjoyable when we do this with friends. It can also improve your motivation.

• Spend time outside of the medicine bubble. Medics often live together as they have longer term times and more intensive work days. This makes it very easy for your friendship and conversations to all revolve around medicine. Challenge yourself to spend a whole evening without talking about placement or lectures!

•  Know when to ask for help and don’t feel ashamed. This could be from friends, your GP or your university. Medicine is very competitive and there can be stigma in seeking support. But this is a very out-dated mind set and has no possible benefit in the long run. It is more than okay to seek help when you need it and you should never feel ashamed or guilty for it.

We hope you have found these tips helpful! It can take time to find strategies that work for you, so don’t be afraid to try different things to discover what you enjoy. It’s also important to remember that everyone is individual and what works for one person, may not work for another. Taking care of yourself will allow you to have more patience, energy and concentration in lectures and placement, so it is worth making time for and not something you should ever feel guilty for. In order to be the best doctor you can be, you need to look after yourself first.