🩺 Scrub In: The Motivated Med Life

During my second year of undergrad, it became second nature for me to fall asleep around 2 a.m. and wake up at 6 a.m. I thought I was managing just fine until one night I decided to pull an all-nighter to finish a calculus assignment and a political science paper. After rushing to class, I completely crashed on a hallway bench and woke up minutes after the class had ended to my professor asking if I was okay. That was my wake-up call, literally.

What’s fascinating is that I knew I needed sleep. I just believed there wasn’t enough time in the day. Maybe you’ve felt the same. Between work, school deadlines, chores, caring for others, and the constant pressure to be productive, sleep often slips to the bottom of the list. No one is begging us to rest. In fact, the world often hounds us to do the opposite, until it’s too late.

After that crash, I realized I couldn’t survive college like that. So, I tried an experiment: I stopped setting an alarm. At first, it was terrifying to give up that safety net. And because my body was so used to a lack of sleep, I kept waking up at midnight even when I went to bed at 10 p.m. But after some trial and error, I discovered my sweet spot was 7.5 hours. Even more surprising, I learned I was naturally a morning person. With that knowledge, I started scheduling my classes and study sessions earlier in the day so I wouldn’t be forced into late nights.

Do I still struggle sometimes to hit that 7.5-hour mark? Absolutely. There are mornings when I’m up at 5:30 a.m., pushing through anyway. But knowing what my body needs keeps me grounded. It reminds me that I can’t ignore rest and still expect to succeed.Yes, some of us may feel like we have fewer waking hours in the day than we’d like. But if those hours are fueled by real rest, we’ll be far better equipped to make the most of them. Sleep isn’t wasted time, it’s an investment in every waking moment.