I have found a very interesting articles about PhD students mental health.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01492-0
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03489-1
In May 2019 there was organized a international conference to discuss about mental health and wellbeing of postgraduate researcher. Many PhD students are depressed, overworkd and overstressd. It's a very important problem. I'm very interesting about your opinions.
Please answer some questions
- How do you think what should be done to avoid PhD students mental health problems?
- Have you ever feel overworked and overstressed after beginning PhD studies? If yes what was the reason for that feeling?
- Do you agree with PhD student mentioned in article that PhD students more than twice as likely to suffer from mental-health difficulties than the highly educated population in general?
1. How do you think what should be done to avoid PhD students mental health problems?
ReplyDeleteFirstly I would like to say that your topic is very interesting and I think nowadays it is on top. In my opinion the most important thing is to realize that PhD is only a part of your life not a whole life so it means that your PhD dissertation should not take 100% of your time. I surfed the Internet and I found some advices what the PhD students and academic teachers should do to avoid physic problems.
-If you get depressed or anxious don’t be ashamed or embarrassed by your feelings. Depression and anxiety are not weaknesses.
-Challenge negative thinking and your own limiting beliefs. It means that don’t be too hard on yourself.
-Take care of yourself, for example do one thing for yourself each day.
-Celebrate successes, no matter how small
-Try new things. Take the unbeaten path. Just because everyone else is going to do a postdoc or PhD dissertation doesn’t mean you have to do it as well. It means that You can create your own path.
2. Have you ever feel overworked and overstressed after beginning PhD studies? If yes what was the reason for that feeling?
I have felt overworked and stressed being PhD students even several times. We had a subject “Natural language processing” during summer semester, as you remember. I have never met this topic. Surprisingly, we had to do the task from the contest and write an exam. It stressed me because I was busy in my work and I had to learn to the exam and to do the project to pass the subject. I have started learn only two days before the exam and additionally to this I was so tired! I had some problems with doing the project because I have never done it before so I was getting more and more stressed and I started saying that I could do it! Finally, I have passed the exam and done the project and obtained a good mark and I could relax.
3. Do you agree with PhD student mentioned in article that PhD students more than twice as likely to suffer from mental-health difficulties than the highly educated population in general?
I definitely agree with it. Most of people think the people who work in universities work only 8 or even less hours per week. The same situation is with PhD students. I heard several times that PhD students do not have to do anything and only receive the scholarship. I guess that almost all PhD students will agree with me and will say that it is not truth. I am an academic teacher and a PhD student and I can say that my work is stressful and sometimes I feel overloaded, especially during the end of the semester. I spend a lot of hours working on my PhD dissertation not only in the university but also at home. It happens that I have a problem with my experiment and when I come back home I cannot do anything because I try to solve my problem. I suppose that a lot of PhD students can suffer from mental-health difficulties because they can't handle themselves and they can't control stress and they are afraid that they do not manage with PhD studies.
Thank You very much for your opinion. It's very interesting and I agree with you in 100%. There are many situation in our journey to become a PhD. Some of them are very stressful and some of them less. We have much work to do and the deadlines are crazy. Teaching, working on PhD thesis, learn new things in short time. Sometimes we do that in the same time. That all make us overstressed. The final of our journey is near :)
DeleteFirst, I answer all three questions 3x NO! (almost like after the war ;-))
ReplyDelete1. How do you think what should be done to avoid PhD students mental health problems?
Not just PhD students. Everyone should be careful about their mental health. It doesn't matter if you are a student, lecturer or doctoral student or maybe a professor! A person who has completed basic vocational school may have the same problems as me or you. Being a PhD student doesn't change anything here.
2. Have you ever feel overworked and overstressed after beginning PhD studies? If yes what was the reason for that feeling?
You can't see anything like that in a 0/1 way. Can starting a PhD program have such a negative impact on me? No, if you have to graduate, you want to be a doctor (in my understanding of the world). Therefore, these studies cannot bring such stress. In my opinion, of course.
3. Do you agree with PhD student mentioned in article that PhD students more than twice as likely to suffer from mental-health difficulties than the highly educated population in general?
No, a PhD student is the same as everyone else. Why would you be twice more exposed to anything than another human being? You have to be able to cut yourself off. For example, when I have a weaker day, I go fishing. After 8-12 hours in the fresh air, I have a different view of the world.
Thank You for your opinion
Delete1. How do you think what should be done to avoid PhD students mental health problems?
ReplyDeleteTo prevent mental health problems, I think it is important to maintain a balance between science, work and personal life. I also found an interesting article that gives some tips on how to deal with this. https://www.phdstudies.com/article/managing-your-mental-health-as-a-phd-student/
2. Have you ever feel overworked and overstressed after beginning PhD studies? If yes what was the reason for that feeling?
I have these feelings from time to time. This is due to the accumulation of responsibilities and I think it is quite normal. It's important not to be overwhelmed by all this and to successively pursue your goals.
3. Do you agree with PhD student mentioned in article that PhD students more than twice as likely to suffer from mental-health difficulties than the highly educated population in general?
I haven't thought about it before. However, if research has been carried out and such conclusions come out, there must be something in it.
Thank You for your opinion. I know that we have to maintain a balance but sometimes it's difficult when we have a lot to do and deadlines near. We work over 12h and don't have a free time. We know that this is important to complete our work because we don't have time for make mistakes. I think that's the problem. The time pressure.
Delete1. How do you think what should be done to avoid PhD students mental health problems?
ReplyDeleteYoung scientists are under constant pressure. We are required to have expertise, to be able to write, to pass on their knowledge to students. This is a real race that often has a negative impact on health. Until now, the problem has been pushed aside, treated as irrelevant. In Poland, education and scientific work is focused on individual work and personal success. The result is a lack of atmosphere of cooperation and a sense of continuous isolation. Inconsistent expectations between a promoter and a doctoral student increase the stress. Until now, as many PhD students as possible have been accepted, which was dictated by financial benefits for the university or scientific unit, and not by the development of the scientific staff. At present, it is very difficult to get into doctoral studies. Only this small difference. If the system of financing research does not change, nothing will change.
2. Have you ever feel overworked and overstressed after beginning PhD studies? If yes what was the reason for that feeling?
I often feel tired, because in addition to conducting statutory research I have to teach at two universities. I think everyone would feel tired if they had to work all the time. You work much more than eight hours a day, often at weekends and at night. The day has only 24 hours, so you can't read the necessary literature, work on a project, write reports and publications at the same time, prepare for classes with students and still work extra.
3. Do you agree with PhD student mentioned in article that PhD students more than twice as likely to suffer from mental-health difficulties than the highly educated population in general?
My work is particularly stressful. I spend many hours working on my doctoral dissertation not only at university but also at home. Sometimes I have a problem with my experiment and when I get home I try to solve it again until it works.I suppose many PhD students may have mental health problems because they become labourers.
Thank You for your opinion. I agree with you in 100%. Our work is stressful :)
Delete1. How do you think what should be done to avoid PhD students mental health problems?
ReplyDeleteI think that PhD students should have contact with psychologist (e.g. once in semester). The rest is in our hands. Everyone had to have person which will say to you that you work too much, that you look exhausted and should to take rest and spend time with family. That is really important because I know from my experience that when I'm "close enought" finding solution I could spend day after day next to computer. Very often I just think that I'm close...
2. Have you ever feel overworked and overstressed after beginning PhD studies? If yes what was the reason for that feeling?
Yes, because when I start I trying to achieve as many as it was possible in the short time. That was ridiculous. I want to find my topic ASAP, later I want to had first publication immediately and so on...the goals never ends. Now I find a balance between my family and work/PhD.
3. Do you agree with PhD student mentioned in article that PhD students more than twice as likely to suffer from mental-health difficulties than the highly educated population in general?
I have no opinion...I think that PhD isn't so bad as to assume that we will suffer from mental-health difficulties than other educated population. Moreover now many things are just easier that in the past. Every article are in internet, contact with others is just one click and so on...
Thank You for your opinion. I think a contact with psychologist is a good idea. Maybe this could help PhD student to overcome mental health problems.
Delete1. How do you think what should be done to avoid PhD students mental health problems?
ReplyDeleteI think that this problem is universal, and apply to wilder group, we can expand this question, and ask: what should be done to avoid mental health problem observed in latest generation of highly educated people like in generation of Millennials and generation Z. We were raised in feeling that everything is possible, we are the most brilliant ones, and that we will achieve everything without much effort. The reality is a bit different than that, we have to learn that sometimes there will be obstacles, dead ends and harsh critics on our way, and that this is ok and normal, and we supposed to be wrong from time to time. In my opinion this is the first step for mental health, the other important things is to have someone that is going through the same and can support us. The last I recommend is some physical activity through which we can channel and get rid of negative emotion.
2. Have you ever feel overworked and overstressed after beginning PhD studies? If yes what was the reason for that feeling?
I’m taking my PhD studies parallel to full time work and sometimes I’m overworked. I can’t change deadlines on a work' projects, and beside of schedules there are always an unpredictable project’ crises. Especially I remember situation when I was on 3 days’ work travel on client' site, working more than 14 hours per day, and then after delayed flight back to home I had to sit all night working on PhD subject assignments due to its deadline.
3. Do you agree with PhD student mentioned in article that PhD students more than twice as likely to suffer from mental-health difficulties than the highly educated population in general?
I think that they are in a high risk group of mental-health difficulties, but I don’t think that taking PhD studies is the only one, sufficient factor to take into consideration while crating that kind of group. I will rather say that level of ambitions, personal goals and what we expect from ourselves with combination of how we going through struggles and obstacles will be important factors. Because this problem affects many people working in highly competitive work environments in the same weight as in academics world.
Thank You for your opinion. The deadlines are most stressful. We have a lot work to do and sometimes our experiment go wrong. Sometimes one experiment take half year and on last stage we find a mistake. We have to write articles to a conference or journal but we don't have data. That is a nightmare and a very stressful situation.
Delete1. How do you think what should be done to avoid PhD students mental health problems?
ReplyDeleteI think that you need to be able to balance between work, school, and mental relaxation. If it does not work out then ask for help from specialists. Personally, I recently had trouble sleeping, just like in the Fight Club movie, but only a psychiatrist helped me with the pills. The problem was that you need to be able to abstract yourself and not get hung up on problems.
2. Have you ever feel overworked and overstressed after beginning PhD studies? If yes what was the reason for that feeling?
Yes, at the very beginning, it was very difficult for me to combine work, study and personal life. To everything, I am still very impatient and emotional. I described my problem in the answer above)
3. Do you agree with PhD student mentioned in article that PhD students more than twice as likely to suffer from mental-health difficulties than the highly educated population in general?
It is difficult to answer, I think probably yes. But this is my subjective opinion.
Thank You for your response. Sometimes is difficult to find balance between work, school and mental relaxation when there is many things to do.
ReplyDelete1. How do you think what should be done to avoid PhD students mental health problems?
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure, for sure keeping the balance is important. Keeping the distance, and accepting that we might be wrong about things and fail sometimes.
2. Have you ever feel overworked and overstressed after beginning PhD studies? If yes what was the reason for that feeling?
I think I might say there are moments I don't feel overstressed and overworked :-) I think the main reason is that every moment not spent on PhD feels like it was somehow stolen, and should have been used better (from PhD studies PoV). And then there is also constant doubt if I'm not missing something obvious in research work. Maybe there is some publication that points out this missing piece but I'm not aware of it?
3. Do you agree with PhD student mentioned in article that PhD students more than twice as likely to suffer from mental-health difficulties than the highly educated population in general?
Well, I think it's very likely. Up until PhD - it was known what we have to learn, and it was checked on regular basis, we have known what is our standing. PhD students choose to continue education, oftentimes without any clear plan of research.
This might cause constant insecurity. Also, most probably the traits we have that made us to choose PhD studies are correlated with general anxiety and maybe even straight disorders.
1. How do you think what should be done to avoid PhD students mental health problems?
ReplyDeleteDoctoral students as one of many groups of scientists are exposed to various situations that cause stress and reduce self-esteem. I certainly believe that a doctorate should not be done at any cost, because sooner or later it will affect our health. It is also worth assigning yourself the right amount of time for your other duties, because as a PhD student and academic teacher you realize that you are not the only doctor who lives. It would be good to take care of your physical health by doing exercises (even a few simple exercises while working at the computer have a positive effect on our well-being. You should ensure a balanced diet.
2. Have you ever feel overworked and overstressed after beginning PhD studies? If yes what was the reason for that feeling?
It happened many times that after starting doctoral studies I felt tired and often stressed. There could be many reasons, for example: work at the university, having your own family, other responsibilities related to teaching. In addition, we do doctorates and work at the university together with my wife. Unfortunately, the wife has a short time to defend (until the end of 2021, because in the first year of studies she opened her doctoral thesis). I am often stressed that I don't really know what to do (how to go on), because the paths chosen earlier turned out to be wrong.
3. Do you agree with PhD student mentioned in article that PhD students more than twice as likely to suffer from mental-health difficulties than the highly educated population in general?
I do not quite agree with the doctoral student, because I realize that many other people of science are also not light. People who do postdoctoral and professorships, or doctors, are still training and you can say that they are "doing science". I also think that the doctorate is the first scientific school of life, which you have to devote a lot to, and often compromise or even recognize your own weakness. In addition, not everyone is able to complete the doctoral dissertation, because according to the Central Statistical Office, about 16% of doctoral students obtain a doctoral degree in a given field.
How do you think what should be done to avoid PhD students mental health problems?
ReplyDeleteThank you for interesting and important topic. As it was already mentioned in previous comments work-life balance might be the answer to the problem, although it might be difficult achieve. Disadvantage and advantage (at the same time) of being PhD student is the flexibility of our work. We can work when we would like to and where we want, but it usually means that we work from home, also on weekends or at nights.
The second important aspect of being mentally healthy is courage to seek proper help when we feel not so well in our life. Professional help or just simple conversation with our best friend might bring a relief.
Have you ever feel overworked and overstressed after beginning PhD studies? If yes what was the reason for that feeling?
Yes, not only once. Usually it is connected with the deadlines for the articles, when there is not enought time to write the paper, or the results of the experiments are not as expected but I have to publish something.
Do you agree with PhD student mentioned in article that PhD students more than twice as likely to suffer from mental-health difficulties than the highly educated population in general?
I don't know. It is difficult to me to confirm it from experience, but for sure almost all of the PhD students I know are constantly stressed and busy. It might affect their mental health.
1. In our country, they’ve found the solution – no PhD students, no problem.
ReplyDeleteBeing serious - they actually reduced the number of PhD students:
http://naukawpolsce.pap.pl/aktualnosci/news%2C77557%2Cgowin-liczba-nowych-doktorantow-spadnie.html
At a state university, when you are an employee and student at the same time - the main problem is overtime – when for a few more zlotys you do in reality two full time jobs.
Hiring more employees would help in such situation.
2.Yes, I did. Conducting research, numerous results and preparation of new classes at the same time can be stressful and very tiring. a payday comparable to salary gaining as a salesman in the store doesn't help either. Extra work allows you to earn something, but you can't live that way too long.
3. Answering the third question: overwork, stress, high demands and a very uncertain effect of efforts (because getting a doctorate may fail) – those are the factors that can cause mental disorders.
I think that it's more general problem. PhD students may be more exposed to overworking and stress, especially if they have day jobs as well, but nowadays many groups may be affected by such problems.
ReplyDeleteProbably it's impossible or at least very difficult to deal with the root cause which is too many task scheduled for too short period of time. But I've heard that meditation is a good solution of minimizing symptoms ;)
I think I felt over stressed few times, especially when some deadlines at the University and at work were overlapping. But I wouldn't say it affected my mental health in a long run.
To be honest, it's difficult to talk about PhD students globally. The amount work can be totally different depending on the country or even university. For example students in Asia are very competitive and at the same time totally dependent on their advisers. They spend 12-14 ours a day in labs to publish papers on top tier conferences. In Poland it seems it a little bit more chilled than that.
1. This is a very interesting but also a heavy topic. The simplest answer would be "not to give them so much to do". It is difficult to reconcile work, personal life and writing a doctoral dissertation. Research takes a lot of time. They also often don't go smoothly and we encounter a lot of problems. In addition, we cannot afford to devote ourselves to full-time scientific work. Most people work professionally and have to earn money to support themselves. Personally, I work as a teacher at the university and at some times, because of the multitude of classes and other things, I don't have time and strength to sit down for scientific work. It happened and still happens that I work at night to meet deadlines. The worst are the times when you need to write an article before the conference and there is no time for it, and it is quite stressful work. There is little time for myself to be able to rest, gather my thoughts and not have thoughts on the back of my head that I should do research and not watch a movie. I think a lot of PhD students are accusing themselves of being less productive and forget about proper rest, which is needed, especially when we get stuck at some stage of research. Returning to the question, I think that a good promoter who can support and lead a person is certainly a big advantage and reduces a bit of feeling lost and stress. I also think that at PhD studies we should be able to choose the classes we want to attend, because not everyone will be a specialist in everything. Information technology is really a huge field and someone who can program does not have to be so good at artificial intelligence or databases. A lot of time classes or workshops would help too, I don't know how others do, but I have a big problem planning my duties so as not to leave the majority at the last minute.
ReplyDelete2. Many times! I often had a moment of breakdown and wondered why I needed it at all. The worst moment was probably last summer, when I had an intense end of the semester with students, going to the conference and in the meantime I had to write three articles and I could not pass the subject of natural language processing, because it was something completely new and I could not understand it in such a short time. Fortunately, I survived it somehow, but it was not without crying and a little depression.
3. Let's be honest, we wrote about it ourselves. Going to a PhD, we know that we will have a lot of work, that it is not easy. It is certainly hard, but I also know that it is equally difficult for young doctors to start independent research and obtain grants. They also have to work a lot and really the effort we put into the doctoral thesis is just the beginning of a further effort in the five above. In addition, we do not yet have as much responsibility as on doctors or professors, who are, for example, managers of huge projects and have to take care of everything.
Hello,
ReplyDeleteThank you for raising an important matter. The mental health of our society is indeed subject that should be considered - both in general and in detail.
1. How do you think what should be done to avoid PhD students mental health problems?
I think that life - school - work balance should be taken into consideration. It does not mean to share time equally between these factors.
2.Have you ever feel overworked and overstressed after beginning PhD studies? If yes what was the reason for that feeling?
As somebody mentioned, we are set on the results in our publications; failure is not an option because a peer-reviewed journal will not accept it.
3.Do you agree with PhD student mentioned in article that PhD students more than twice as likely to suffer from mental health difficulties than the highly educated population in general?
I think that stress, hight demands, and deadlines could affect mental health difficulties.