PSG #005: Stress management for PhD candidates - be more relaxed, achieve more!

Not dealing with my stress properly lead to an acute hearing loss.

Already four years into my PhD, I was really frustrated and desperate.

I still did not have enough data to write my thesis. My experiments did not work. The sensor I was using for my measurements was not sensitive enough to investigate the questions I had. I worked really hard and still no results. Stress levels kept rising but I thought I could not take a break. Even not working every weekend felt wrong. I felt guilty for not working constantly on my PhD. I was afraid of never finishing. And everybody kept asking when I would finally be done. So much pressure. Also from myself.

Same for my brother, he had to function at his job and even work overtime but also to study for exams, write his thesis and figure out how sleep fits into his weeks… Because he had to visit the school also on weekends, there was no weekend. No break and no time to breathe.

We both had trouble sleeping. Were nervous and agitated all the time. Not able to relax a bit. Overworked and overwhelmed. No balance.

One day I woke up, not being able to hear anything in my left ear. At first, I thought I was getting sick, but I had no other signs of the flu or so. A day later, I went to an ear specialist because my mom told me to. He first said it’s probably from using Q-tips. But there was nothing clogging my ear. After a hearing test, it was clear: acute hearing loss. The trigger: stress. There is no real treatment. Only getting cortisone injections for a while and hoping for the best. I was scared. Luckily, my hearing came back.

My brother on the other hand developed burnout. He rarely left the house, driving to work was like a marathon on its own. Seeing friends or going out caused panic attacks just thinking about it. Going to a doctor? I can't be sick, I'm am just too weak…

Luckily, with the help of friends and family, he reorganized some small parts and this was enough to let him finish.

After this, we knew it was time for a change. Time to deal with all our stress in a healthy way.

I just wanted to finish my PhD and stay healthy

Of course, my colleagues and I joked quite a few times about quitting and running away. Maybe to a faraway country, to finally relax and recharge again. A one to ten years sabbatical should do the trick. We wanted to relax, have time for fun things, hang out, chillax, and feel free.

I started to search for help to feel better while still finishing my PhD successfully. Reading books, articles, blog posts, watching videos … There were some nice tools, tips and tricks.

I randomly implemented some of them and tried different out.

And some of them really helped me.

However, there was still more and more stress coming and it felt like a never-ending treadmill.

I realized that only dealing with stress is not enough.

You need to prevent as much stress as possible in the first place

Stress management tools can help you handle stress. But if there is constantly tons of new stress arising, it is really hard.

It’s like you only treat the symptoms but not the root cause of your stress!

That’s why you need to prevent stress in the first place.

Here’s where mindset work and proper time management come into play. Both of them help you to prevent a lot of stress from happening in the first place.

If you have a growth mindset you are more resilient and less easy to stress by challenging situations. You also don’t put yourself under too much pressure.

Building up awareness leads to a bigger knowledge about yourself and you then can attack everything else in the way it is right for you!

Proper and balanced time management helps to lower stress from work, deadlines, and endless to-do lists.

In a nutshell, mindset and time management lay the foundation to reduce the stress that is avoidable in the first place.

Then stress management tools can help you deal with all the unavoidable stress heading your way.

You need to learn about:

• staying calm in challenging situations
• changing your perspective to handle stress better
• daily habits to feel less stressed and more focused
• understanding yourself better and finding out what really works for you

Please make your health a priority

You need to understand that stress management is just the tip of the iceberg.

The stress management tools are really, really handy and you need them in your toolbox!

But again, it’s like you only treat the symptoms but not the root cause of your stress. When you have knee pain and they only work on your knee, without seeing the root course which is your hip displacement, your pain is coming back after a few weeks. Nothing changed.

You probably already tried different things and they help for some time but then, it stopped.

Without a system, knowledge, and awareness in the first place, you will keep struggling.

Go ahead and be kind to yourself and realize that there are more than just some stress management tools. But remember, you have to power to change everything!

Take action and protect your (mental) health.

The coming newsletters will contain helpful tools and insights on stress management as well.

See you next week!

If you want more help:

We're excited to share the PhD Survival System with you because we know how tough it can be to get through a PhD program. We have developed a holistic system that combines all the necessary areas needed to obtain optimal results.

We start with the foundation, your mindset and on top of that we building two pillars with time management and stress management.