The stereotype of pre-med students is time tested and often true: the overscheduled, hyper-anxious student rushing to class, huddled over what looks like a small family of science textbooks at the library, compulsively checking grades, garnering glossy resume additions like a kid collecting baseball cards.
Although we certainly don't all fit the stereotype, there is one element of it that hits every pre-med at one time or another: stress. Whether it's an upcoming organic chemistry test, an obnoxious lab or medical school admissions, the demanding aspects of the pre-med curriculum and the set of extra-curriculars are sure to cause more than their share of tension headaches.
I didn't really think about the adverse effects of stress too seriously until I became a pre-med student. I knew, like everyone else in high school, that moderating stress was important. There's something about scientific and medical (or pre-medical) knowledge, though, which makes everything clearer - and scarier. I have compiled below a brief listing of what are, in my second-year-overstressed-pre-med view, the worst effects of chronic stress:
1. The Cortisol Spike - Think being stressed is bad? Try being stressed out plus gaining weight. Stress increases release of the hormone cortisol, which when chronically elevated can cause weight gain. This often is common knowledge, but nevertheless, the specter of the cortisol increase is a pretty good incentive to try to relax. Then again, thinking about the effects of stress is stressful in and of itself, so that may not be a good tactic.
2. Loss of Concentration/Headache - I grouped these together because they both accomplish the same objective: slowing/stopping thinking. I've often been told that overstressing can sabotage one's own efforts, and it makes sense - we've all taken tests where we realize we've forgotten something and freeze up, thus forgetting more. As someone with a migraine disorder, headaches - in particular, migraines - really are quite a time sink. I've got the option of resting them until they're gone or continuing to work and worsening the headache. Plus, any work I do with a migraine typically needs major corrections when I look at it again. It's a lose-lose situation.
3. Memory Loss - This, I think, is the scariest of all, maybe because it doesn't seem to be widely known. Ironically enough, I discovered it in a class I took as a pre-med elective. I read about studies on rats in which they were chronically exposed to stress. This resulted in shrinking of neurons in the hippocampus - a brain area responsible for a great deal of memory. The rats also had memory deficits. Studies of older people have shown that those who have very high cortisol levels have smaller hippocampi and greater memory deficits. This goes back to the scare of the cortisol spike. Maybe I'm the only one, but I'd rather not go into premature dementia because I overstressed myself as an undergrad.
Of course, for some of us relaxing is much easier said than done. Sometimes it's less difficult to stay on the go and live life like a never-ending run-on sentence. But life without a pause, in most cases, just crescendos right up until the inevitable crash-and-burn. And crashing-and-burning isn't a good way to spend one's young adulthood.
I make sure I schedule in breaks every day now and make the most of my lulls. I notice three beautiful things in nature each day. They don't have to be grandiose or noticeable at all. One day, one of them was an upturned leaf on the ground. Another day, it was a dewdrop. A sparrow perched in a tree. It's small, but it's a centering exercise that helps, if only momentarily, to keep everything in perspective.
Courtney's column runs biweekly Fridays. She can be reached at c.hartnett@cavalierdaily.com.
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