A PhD is not intrinsically stressful by nature.
“But”, you say, “I’m doing a PhD and I find it very stressful”.
I’m not going to argue with that, but I will argue that stress is a reaction to the situation, and that a PhD is not stressful by nature.
PhD stress…
PhD stress is common, and there are lots of factors which often contribute to stress, but that doesn’t mean that it is inevitable.
Think about it this way. IF you see stress as an inevitable part of your PhD, and that you have to suffer in order to succeed, then you are saying that there is nothing you can do about it.
That’s just the way it is. Shut up and work harder…
But, if you see stress a different way, then you don’t have to just accept stress as part of your everyday life.
Stress is a reaction to the outside world
If stress is a reaction to circumstances, rather than a circumstance in its own right, then you have a chance to change the way you react.
Stress is a signal that something is wrong
If you just accept stress as part of life, then you will ignore it. But if you see it as a signal that you need to approach things differently, then at least this way you have a chance!
You cannot do your best work under high stress, because it diminishes your ability to think (which is quite important for an academic).
Slow down
When you are at your most stressed, when you have a thousand difficult things to do at the same time, and when you are most worried about the outcome, the most important thing to do is to slow down.
Stop, take time to think, simplify the problem, focus on one thing, and you will give yourself the best chance to regain control and ultimately to succeed.
Don’t just accept stress as an inevitable part of life. It’s not the PhD, it’s just a reaction to it.
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I get your point, saying that its more our reactions that make things stressful and that stress is not always a negative think, acting at times like a force. But I don’t think someone working in ER would say “my job is not stressful, its just the reaction I have to it”. Perhaps PhD is more distressful than stressful, just browse through the forums and see how many depressed students are out there (some of them happy individuals before PhD).
Right…. yes well…is as if saying being an ER doctor is not stressful, is their reactions. Probably you want to point out that stress is not always such a bad thing, and I agree, since it can be a force that pushes to move.
Thinking about it, PhD is not stressful, is distressful. just have a look at how many depressed people are there out there who were completely happy individuals before it.
The point is, you don’t have to accept it as inevitable. I’m very aware that many students (and ER doctors) are stressed. If you see it as inevitable, and just part of the nature of a PhD, then you’ll just accept it rather than thinking whether there are things you can do differently.
At some point, (when I was very stressed by the pressure I think) I decided to look at the PhD as being really just a very big essay. When I approached it that way, it seemed to diffuse some of the pressure and stress. Instead of focusing on it as having to be some amazing contribution to the world I focused more on it being an achievable project with several different sections to it. When I saw it as a huge project with lots of pressure to be outstanding, it was a more stressful experience. When I broke it down into sizeable portions it made managing it much easier. Thinking of it as a very big essay seemed to loosen the grip of stress in some way. I felt it was useful viewing it that way sometimes, as it also put it into a context of academic work which I have already succeeded with.
Anything you can do to make it easier is a good thing, and often just changing the way you think about the work is enough to make a difference. I’m not sure that thinking of it as just a big essay will help everyone… it depends how good you are at essays, but great that you found a way that works for you.
Sure it’s more than ‘just’ a big essay… I definitely wouldn’t try to trivialise it. But what I mean is that it took some of the pressure out of how I might think of it. This was after a lot of the other work was done too. It seemed helpful to take it out of the high stress level and put it into a different perspective. I’m working partly with writing/arts as research method so it was useful for that side of things too.
p.s. Just read your earlier blog post on the difference between academic writing and student essays- so I should really add that I refer to an essay of top quality, not a quick-slap-together variety. I wrote quality, well thought out essays for my Masters work, and previously, so this idea was based on quality work.
Then what if you have feeling that you will not get a PhD! Sometimes, I have feeling like my adviser not care about my progress. She works with ” do it yourself’ brand, while other fellows have advisers work with them and help them!
Thanks for your great tips. It really make me feel better
That is a stressful feeling, but if you think about how you can address it rather than accepting it, maybe there is something you can do. For me, I reached a point where I no longer cared what the examiners thought, I just did the work… It made things much easier!
I am now trying to think that it is a good chance to learn new physics. Also, trying to not count days and focus on my works.
Could I ask you James to give some tips about how you can make your relationship with your adviser better? I have not finish from reading the blog yet so I don not now if there are some things about advisers
Thanks alot
That is an important question, I’ll address it in the blog soon!
To me, a PhD is stressful because it’s a such a big, seemingly-unmanageable project. It’s hard to figure out how much work you need to do because there’s so much of it, and it’s always changing. I’ve been blogging on how to make my PhD seem more achievable by splitting it down into tasks. I’m trying to make it more fun and addictive, like a video game. Just written a guest post on this for PhD2Published…
http://www.phd2published.com/2013/01/30/phd-to-publishing-its-all-just-a-game-really-by-ellen-spaeth/