# @carmen.strives on Instagram

- **Type:** Video
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DL2zVUlSsE1
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/59924413-carmenstrives-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/ff6db1a805.jpg
- **Posted:** 2025-07-08T18:14:40.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Carmen | Medical student 🩺 (@carmen.strives) — https://gondola.cc/carmen.strives

## Caption

Life outside medicine | ep.1 🩺

As a graduate medical student, I’ve experienced burnout more times than I can count — not just in med school, but all throughout my 3-year undergraduate degree. 

After trying countless “self-care” tips out there, I found the one method that actually helped me recover instantly; and it wasn’t rest.
It was challenging myself in a completely different way.

🧠 Science behind it:
Studies show that novel, meaningful experiences release dopamine, improve emotional regulation, and reset brain circuits involved in stress and burnout.
Activities that feel rewarding, embodied, and joyful trigger the parasympathetic nervous system, helping you shift out of fight-or-flight mode and into restoration.
(Maddux & Galinsky, 2009; Fredrickson, 2001; Lisman & Grace, 2005; Porges, 2011)

📝Here are 20 things I’ve done through the years that helped me bounce back from burnout:

1. Learn baking
2. Dance your heart out
3. Fundraise for a cause
4. Volunteer outside of medicine
5. Have a genuine convo with a stranger
6. Skydiving (or something that scares you)
7. Take a spontaneous trip
8. Help someone — even just holding a door
9. Call an old high school friend
10. Go for solo hotpot
11. Lie on the grass and journal
12. Learn a new sport (no pressure to be good)
13. Scooter/ cycle aimlessly through your city
14. Cook for someone you love
15. Get lost in a bookstore
16. Record yourself yapping to an imaginary friend 
17. Talk to your pet like they’re your therapist 
18. Watch the sunrise 
19. Make dumplings
20. Dine alone 

Have you tried any of these? 
📌Save this for later! 

——
Follow carmen.strives for more life hacks I learned in med school *✩‧₊˚

#medstudentlife #medstudent #medschooldiaries #medschool #selfimprovement

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## Tags

selfimprovement, medschooldiaries, medstudentlife, medschool, medstudent

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