At your new apartment or home, you will likely feel some anxiety as you conform to a new living environment. Even at the infamous social gatherings during orientation, meeting and adjusting to new friends and peers can be at once a very exciting and an anxious time. The stresses of medical school can be allayed Identifying your anxieties is perhaps the most important step toward lessening them. A friend of mine once defined stress as a closed room full of bad musicians playing screeching violins. While this analogy perfectly described what I felt just before embarking upon the first summative exam, it does not completely and succinctly define stress.
Stress is different in everyone, and everyone has a different threshold for tolerating stress.
Don't expect everyone to react alike to the same circumstance. Learn to identify the pressures that confront you. It is very important to realize that you will encounter stress as a medical student. I am sure most of you expect it, and perhaps some of you relish tackling it. Most entering Pitt Med students fail to realize that their stress may manifest itself in very unexpected parts of their lives.