Sleep Quality And Medical School

It is a known fact that Medical students are known for writing exams. In fact, they write exams in medical school for a living. A preclinical student writes more than 10 incourse exams before the first professional medical board examinations. For a clinical student, the number of examinations he or she has to write is a greater number. The amount of work and bulky syllabus for an average medical student causes time constraint.

As if these are not enough, many medical students have to work on the side to afford to take care of themselves, buy and print materials, and feed. Some medical students are from backgrounds below average. This means they may have to pay their tuition without financial support from family. All of these reasons make the number of hours in a day fly by quickly. 24 hours becomes too short to carry out all their activities, attend classes, read and sleep. Because time is not enough, many medical students sacrifice their sleep, or sleep in unfavorable conditions. Their sleep suffers in quality and amount.

True, there are situations that call for sleeping less than the required six to eight hours. However, there are times that a student in medical school is able to sleep for longer than the average amount of time. Why is it important to improve the quality of sleep in such times?

Why Is It Important to Improve Sleep Quality?

When a student sleeps well, there is a change in the way he or she carries out his or her activities. Consolidation is better, and storing new information is faster. When a medical student sleeps well before an examination, the ability to remember stored information is easier. 

There have been situations whereas students have experienced a blur in their sight because of a lack of sleep. The bad thing about the blurs is that it occurred in examination halls. Students have also had terrible experiences of sleeping in examination halls. There has been no other reason for this but physical and mental exhaustion as a result of a lack of quality . None of these situations and experiences is positive. Sometimes, they have led to academic failure. The importance of sleeping and sleeping soundly and well cannot be overemphasized.

Despite the school pressure and other forms of pressure, what can medical students do to improve their sleep quality? What practices must students in medical school imbibe so that they will sleep better? What must medical students do to improve their physical and mental health after each sleep?

Improving Sleep Quality In Medical School

To Sleep Better in Medical School, some of these suggestions can help:

1. Eat light meals at night: Rather than eat heavy meals at night, medical students eat light meals. That way, they will sleep and wake up refreshed as they will not have to wake up at night due to slow digestion or a lack of comfortability.
2. Make your daytime productive: What sometimes tends to make medical students sleep poorly is because of academic worries. Sometimes, these worries weigh so heavy on their minds that they find it hard to sleep at all or to sleep for long hours at a stretch. To solve or reduce this problem, medical students should make wise use of their daytime. Rather than waste time scrolling through social media during the day, reading then will help them to worry less at night. Knowing fully well that they have covered a part of the syllabus during the day will help them to sleep soundly at night.
3. Stick to a sleep schedule as much as possible: More often than not, medical school messes with the circadian rhythm of its students. However, to the best possible extent, medical students should try to stick to a time schedule for sleep. Sleeping early(say 10pm) and waking up early(say 3am) is also closely related to sleeping better. This helps better than staying up all night or for most of the night to read.
4. Reduce screen time: Once a medical student knows that he or she would like to sleep at a particular time, it will be better to reduce the amount of screen time. For an hour or two till it is time to sleep, medical students should make it a habit to read hard copy textbooks or materials rather than read from their phones or laptops. This way, when it is time to sleep, they will sleep faster and wake up refreshed.
5. Reduce caffeine intake: Caffeine is not a friend of quality sleep. If a medical student wants to wake up full of life and energy, it will be great to avoid taking caffeinated drinks, especially at night.
6. Switch off the light before sleeping: There is always a difference in sleep quality when a person sleeps with the lights switched off than leeping and waking up with the lights switched on. This is not talked about enough, but having the lights switched ff improves sleep quality.

Conclusion

In medical school, sleeping well requires effort and intentionality. However, the rewards in terms of better health and brain functionality is worth the effort.

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