You all know how difficult, yet rewarding, pharmacy school is. The exams, networking, and interviews can be really exhausting after a while. I believe it is important to have something that keeps you sharp, physically active, and creative.

As a recent pharmacy school graduate and current PGY-1 executive resident, work–life balance has been incredibly hard to maintain. After dedicating the past 4 years of my life to passing exams, I thought that after I graduated, life would finally slow down.

Everything is fast-paced nowadays. You’re going full speed ahead toward your goals without taking a second for granted. You ignore the warning signs your body gives you and push it to the limit. You burn out your body, mind, and spirit to the point where you are just going through the motions instead of experiencing them. You’ve been conditioned to think that you must use every minute available to do something productive, and convince yourself that you don’t have time and that you’re somehow being lazy or unproductive if you take a break, when in reality your body needs breaks to recover. It’s not just about sleeping a proper number of hours and eating healthy food, but actually taking care of your state of mind and mental health.

Among a demanding schedule of lectures, homework, job commitments, extracurriculars, social life, familial obligations, cooking, cleaning, the never-ending pile of laundry, and meeting basic human needs, the first thing many student pharmacists sacrifice to fit in everything else is sleep.

Pharmacy school is filled with rigorous coursework that—if you’re not careful—can start to consume you. While time as a student pharmacist flies by and the accomplishment of earning a PharmD is something to look forward to, you must take the time to pause along the way and focus on how you’re doing.