Self Care is Health Care

There comes a moment in everyone’s life where they feel that they are doing everything that they can. Whether it be that they are working at their hardest to be successful in school or work or that they are trying to balance each aspect of their lives to the best of their ability. Knowing that I was going to be beginning medical school this year, I spent my entire summer mentally preparing myself that I would put in my 110% towards school while trying to balance the most important aspects of my life. I’ve heard the horror stories of sacrifices that medical students have to make make and sadly, time was the biggest culprit in each and every one of them.

Medical school is no joke. It is mentally and emotionally tolling. Classes are difficult. You are in a pool of humans who are just as smart, if not smarter than you. Having a medical illness, might be a setback, but I was determined to not let it be.

Months into school, I realized that I was at the top of my diabetes game, following everything by the book. I was monitoring my sugar levels. I was making sure to eat every meal. I was making sure to restock my diabetes supplies. Most importantly, I wasn’t forgetting my health, or so, that is what I thought.

Sadly, as work piled and exams began to take over my life, I was waking up with sugar levels CONSTANTLY in the 300s. Most days, I would go to bed with a blood glucose level between 100-150. Therefore, every single day when I would wake up with it in the 300s or low 400s, I began to panic. I did not know what was wrong. I talked to my healthcare team, and explained to them by day by day schedule. To my surprise, they told me that it was not something I was doing wrong, it was something that I WASN’T doing which was the problem. My doctor claimed that the stress and exhaustion from medical school was causing a rise in my cortisol levels overnight leading to increased glucose production leading to high levels in the morning.

My first thought was, well what am I not doing? And that’s when it hit me. Since I began medical school, and even before that, people have been telling me to take care of my mental health and my emotional stress. Although I personally did not think that I was continuously stressed or that I was exhausted, my body was clearly telling me otherwise. I was forgetting to practice self-care.

All summer my father tried to tell me the benefits of mindfulness and meditation. Although I could get myself to meditate for maybe maximum of 10 minutes, I could never really get myself to do much more. After lots of reflecting, I realized that self care is not alterable per person. Self care can be watching Netflix for a hour, reading a book to bed, taking a long hot shower, taking a night off to sleep early, sitting outside and staring at the stars. Self-care could be anything that accounts to your happiness.

Sadly, not all medical students are able to look at their sugar levels and see that they are inadvertently exhausted and stressed. This is why medical students are a target demographic to experience burnout and depression.

First important lesson of medical school: take care of yourself; mental health and self care is important; do not put yourself on the backburner; self care is health care.