Tag: PhD fatigue

Taking a break: how long is long enough (or too long)?

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Every year while I was working on my PhD I would struggle to get back into the reading and writing after the December holiday break. I took around 3 weeks off each year before Christmas and then into the new year, and it was so hard to come out of idle speed and back up to work and PhD speed. I wrote about the need for a break, acknowledging the challenge of making this break neither too short nor too long. Too short and you are not rested enough to get going again with fresh energy and drive. Too long and you may get stuck in holiday mode for too long, leading to writing and research paralysis and anxiety.

I find myself, right now, in desperate need of a mental and physical break. But, and this is a big but, I cannot take one because my book manuscript in its entire, finished form is due in mid-January to the publisher. I cannot ask for a new deadline, because I have already done that. Also, I don’t want another extension. I want to move forward with a new project next year and I need to complete this one first. So, it needs to stay on schedule. Hence, there is no break this year for me – not really. I will be writing over Christmas and new year, not lolling about all day by the pool or on the beach, reading holiday-for-my-brain chick lit on my Kindle.

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That said, it has been a long and exhausting year on the work front, and if I work too hard over this supposed break time, and then launch myself right out of the book and into 2020 work, I may well be burned out by Easter. This would be a poor plan for a productive start to my new research, not to mention all my 2020 teaching, supervision and writing development work planned. So, I do need some sort of plan for rest in amongst the writing, even if that rest is more physical than mental.

Ideally, your end-of-year PhD or Masters or work break needs to be both: physical and mental. You need to actually not turn on your computer, or check email, or write or read anything, or be near your office. You need to physically and mentally change the scenery, reading fiction, going for walks outdoors, binge-watching a new series, spending time with family and friends, drinking a G&T in the swimming pool under a wide-brimmed hat (that last one might just be mine). This change of scenery, I have learned, is important for putting work in its place, and for rebalancing your energy after a long year. There is no rule for how long is too long for a break from email, research, writing and thinking here, but I think there is a rule that breaks are important and need to be properly taken when they are needed.

Work is just one of the things that we do and that shapes us, it cannot be THE thing otherwise that work-life balance will be quite skewed to the detriment of physical and mental wellbeing. This has been a hard one for me over the years, and something I have only gotten better at since my late 30s, when I stopped trying to push myself to ridiculous lengths to be the Best Ever at Everything. I think all (over) achievers can perhaps identify with a struggle to slow down, delegate, turn the out-of-office email on without the fear that something will go down while you’re not looking and leave you out.

I certainly have struggled, and while I am by no means over all of this, I do now find it easier to realise that my own physical and mental health, and emotional wellbeing, is so much more important that being online and available to anyone who may need my help 365 days a year. That is neither possible, nor desirable as a work-life goal. I can say ‘no’, the world will keep turning, and I don’t have to feel terrible about putting myself first. I think there is something in this about learning to put ourselves first, and seeing that as selfish in a positive, rather than negative, way.

Photo by Artem Beliaikin from Pexels

There is a certain kind of humility, perhaps, in being selfish like this: realising that you are tired, and need a rest, and may even need help to take a rest properly. As the saying goes: you cannot pour from an empty jug. If you are depleted, then what will you have to offer your peers, colleagues, students, not to mention your family and friends? Not very much. And the result of spreading yourself too thin for too long, apart from burnout, may also be feelings of resentment towards those peers, colleagues, students who keep asking for your time. In my experience, pushing myself too hard for too long has also lead to writing paralysis, and then guilt and shame after neglecting my writing because I was just too tired to face it.

So, this year, stuck as I am writing like a fiend now because I procrastinated too much a few months ago, I need to take little mini-breaks and make them count. Obviously, I will have Christmas day off, and probably will have to rest off the champagne on new year’s day. But, in between I have to write and write hard. My plan is simple: a few good hours or more of writing every day, and then a proper rest. My novel, or a game of Wii tennis with my boys, or a swim in the sea, or a surf with my son, or a walk with the dog. And then back to writing. I am hoping, with a conscious balance between important writing time and important resting time, I will reach this particular finish line with enough energy intact to keep the work going until I can take a longer rest later next year. And perhaps, I will learn enough from this year’s “break” to achieve a better work-life balance in 2020.

Thank you all for your support, likes and comments this year. I am looking forward to sharing more writing ups, downs, advice and journey in 2020. Happy holidays to you all!

Photo by Skitterphoto from Pexels

Finding your way back into your research

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I had a long conversation with a dear friend of mine recently about her PhD, with which she is struggling at present. In truth, she has been struggling for a while, and one of the main reasons for this is that she has fallen out of and with it. She is no longer interested in her research topic, and while she has generated rich and interesting data that give her several viable PhD questions to answer, she is battling to find one that will help her find her way back in so that she can press on and complete her doctorate. How can she find her way back in, given that she has been outside of her PhD for a while, and feels an enmity towards it, rather than a feeling of kinship with or interest in it? How can any of us find our way back in to research or projects or papers when we have fallen out with or of them and can’t seem to locate a door or a window to climb back through?

I have, myself, been on the outs with my writing recently. I haven’t posted anything on this blog in a while, not for a lack of ideas, but more because of a kind of ‘Meh’ that has settled over me. I want to be enthusiastic about it, about the paper I have to write before 1 June, about the conference paper due mid-June, about the book proposal I want to write, about the book I am editing with a colleague as we speak, but I am just not. I am on the outs with all of the thinking and writing I have to do. Why, you ask? Well, therein lies the rub: I don’t know exactly. All of these projects are ones I have chosen to take on, and are interesting. They will stimulate and challenge me, and they will all look very impressive on future job applications as well as on the application to renew my postdoc for another year. I not only need to do them, I do want to. In theory. This is a lot like being on the outs with a PhD. My friend, me, you, others – we have chosen to do a PhD, either because we need to or want to or both. But, just because we choose something doesn’t mean that we are always going to be interested in it, or stimulated by it, or excited about doing it.

So, I am asking myself why I have fallen out with all these chosen projects. Am I tired? Perhaps, although given that I no longer have a majorly demanding full-time job which requires me to dress up and leave my house everyday to drive 45 minutes each way, I feel a bit silly being tired. Am I bored? Maybe. I don’t think so. I am still pretty interested in my research, although I could certainly do with some more updated data (all sitting on a flashdrive waiting to be captured and coded). I’m not bored enough to give it all up. Am I just not up to it? No. I am. Really. I think. No, I am. So, what, then? Why am I struggling to find my way back into all of these postdoc projects, just as my friend (and many like her) are struggling to find their way back into their PhDs? Are we tired, bored, not good enough? Have we chosen the wrong project for the right reasons, or the right project for the wrong reasons?

I don’t know the answers to these questions for anyone other than me. But I think finding them and then taking action might be a step towards finding my way back in. If I am tired, then I need to create some space to allow myself a break here and there, so that I do actually feel like I am getting a break from the demands of the writing and thinking. Perhaps, if you are tired, this is something you could do. Not necessarily a physical trip, but maybe more of a mental break, where you can give your brain a rest from obsessing about the PhD or the project you are working on. Mental vacations, where you read slightly (or very) trashy fiction for a week, or pig out on a box set of your favourite series instead of slogging away at your desk every evening, can be just what you need to give your brain a break.

If I am bored, then I need to look at what is boring me and see if I can change or eliminate it. It’s easier to abandon a boring paper than a PhD thesis, but perhaps I could approach it from a new angle, or bring in different data or a slightly modified theoretical framework, or new literature to give the paper new life, and engage my brain differently. Perhaps, if you are bored as my lovely friend is, you could map out as she has done what you have done and what you do know about your topic, and possible trajectories to follow in terms of following all the ideas through. Some may not be as viable as they seem, and some may be much more interesting or possible given your logistical constraints than others. A creative process of elimination and critical reflection with a friend, peer or supervisor (or all three) may be enough to help you work out what you are bored with, and work out how to either make changes or eliminate the boredom from your project so you can get back in and move forward.

If I am not good enough? Well, I don’t know what to do about that. I think I am. I think most people doing a PhD or a postdoc are, but often it’s not enough for others to think this. I have to, you have to, believe it too. Here, I think my solution is to just do the work, small bit by small bit (like this post), telling myself over and over that I am up to it, and that all I have to do is start. As a poster I read recently says: ‘Every accomplishment begins with the decision to try’. So, if you are on the outs with your PhD in whole or part, or with a writing project that is just stuck, ask yourself what it is that is creating the falling out, and see if you can’t at least try to make some changes that will get you moving again in a more positive and productive direction.

Losing heart (and head) and getting it back

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I am working through my final revisions from my supervisor before submitting my thesis to my examiners. Which should be a ‘yay’ kind of experience judging by people’s reactions when they ask how it’s going and I tell them this. But I am having a rather strange experience doing this which can be summed up in a word: Meh. Meh is a word by friend Deb and I use to refer to a feeling of ‘I know I should try to care but I just can’t’ or something like that. I feel very Meh about my thesis right now.

When I handed it over to my supervisor just over a month ago I was consumed by my thesis and had been for some time – organising data, analysing it, re-analysing it, writing about it, getting feedback, revising the chapters – it was all I could think about. But I ran out of steam at the end, and I was tired so it was a relief to hand it over for feedback and have a bit of a break from it. I got my weekends and evenings back for a few weeks, and I started feeling a bit normal again. I wasn’t working on it at all while my supervisor was reading it, because I needed to wait for her comments to start reworking the chapters, and I have to say I did not really miss it.

So when the chapters started coming back mid-October, I just benched them. I read all the comments, and there were not all that many that meant huge changes – most of it was minor stuff, thankfully – so I told myself the next round of revisions could wait. I didn’t want to go back to feeling consumed and tired and anxious and weekend-less and evening-less. I just wanted to be finished.

But the thing about getting to the point of being finished is that I am not the Shoemaker and there are no magic elves who are going to come into my study while I am sleeping and make my corrections and revisions and additions for me. I have to get myself and my thesis to that end(ish) point where I can hand the beast over and feel confident enough that I have done a good job of it. And to get myself and my thesis there I have to not lose heart now. I have to submit myself again to this process and get a bit consumed again, and lose my head or mind  a little, and care enough to get this done right.

It’s hard, because the Meh is strong, and I am flagging. This has been a long year. I am still excited about my research, but I am starting to get more excited about where I go after this rather than where I am now, which means that staying and being present here is a bit frustrating. But I also take this as a good sign. There is life after a PhD after all and I am finally seeing the chinks of light breaking though. PhDgirl, fighting the Meh and moving towards that finish line.

PhD fatigue

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So, I have written and submitted the first draft. It is a huge achievement because I can see that this really will get done now; I will finish this year. But reaching this milestone has meant working every day, seven days a week (for at least part of each day) for the last month or so at least. Which means I have not really had weekends or evenings to just chill out, and even when I have been chilling I have been unable to get my mind to stop running over  arguments and data and possible conclusions and changes I need to make and clever turns of phrase to add here or there and on and on. And even though the draft is in, it is far from done – the conclusion is not finished because I literally ran out of steam, my brain unable to continue to create coherent sentences or thoughts any more, and there is still a lot of ‘panelbeating’ to do on the thesis before I will feel okay enough about it to sign it away to my examiners. And that makes me feel tired too; the anticipation of more work and more thinking to come.

And I am tired. More tired than I feel I have ever been, particularly in mental terms. I have kids, so I know fatigue well. But that kind of physical and emotional fatigue feels different to this. My brain feels like it has been replaced with woolly stuffing, and I feel kind of fuzzy around the edges, not sharp, not clear. I forget words and I can’t type straight. I think words that come out differently when I type them or write them down, and there are so many typos in everything I am trying to write this week that I need a lot more spellchecker help than usual. My brain feels untrustworthy right now because it forgets even the simplest things, like calling the plumber or why I wrote ‘notes’ on my TO DO list (what notes?) or why I went into the kitchen. This is an odd feeling for me. I’ve always been a writer and a reader and someone who thinks a lot about things (probably too much, some would say) so my brain and I have always been close; I have always trusted it far more than any other part of me, like my heart or my gut. But now, at this point in this PhD journey I find it has gone all fluffy and marshmallowy and I cannot really count on it to remember things or to get things right. It doesn’t feel good.

I am sure this will not be a permanent condition – once the final draft is handed in and I have had a long holiday over Christmas and New Year doing little more stressful than laundry or baking or reading in the hammock, I am sure my brain and body will rest and recover and I will start 2014 with a sharper, clearer brain. But now, in the middle of this, I feel like I will never really completely get rid of this tiredness, this feeling of fuzziness. I was totally unprepared for this. I thought I would feel tired and strung out at the very end, not now when I still need to keep going and thinking and writing. I worry that I don’t have enough in me to finish the revisions really well, and that I will make silly changes and not be able to see these errors before it’s too late and the thing is out of my hands. I hope I will find it in me – I must – but boy, this is one part of the PhD process people are awfully quiet about. Maybe, like pregnancy and childbirth, people can tell you how it was for them, and it could be like that for you or it could be very different. I am putting this out there anyway, because it may be like this for you, or it may be different. Either way, it would have been nice to be a little more prepared. Onwards I go, but maybe a nap first -_- .