Introduction:

Adequate rest determines the mood and performance during daily activities, as well as the mental health and academic success of a medical student with a high academic load. Therefore, knowing what activities they engage in, as well as the difficulties to execute them, provides an approach that permits their accomplishment properly.

Objective:

To describe the rest activities and the difficul- ties in performing them during the academic day of medical students at the Universidad del Cauca in times of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.

Materials and methods:

A descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted among 230 medical students of the Universidad del Cauca, selected with a two-stage probabilistic sampling, who were administered an online survey of 108 questions that addressed socio-demo- graphic aspects and each of the components of rest and lifestyles.

Results:

99.1% of students undertake leisure activities. 29.5% of them do relaxation sessions. Physical exercise was present in 63.3%. Most of the activities increased during confinement. The main difficulties for their execution were the lack of time and adequate physical spaces.

Conclusions:

Leisure activities were the most frequently encountered in this population. Knowing the difficulties perceived by the students contributes to the exploration for improvement plans associated with student wellbeing. There is a need to assess stress and more aspects of mental health, new studies could focus on this aspect of utmost importance in medical students.

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