PhD is the most stressful time for most students. It can feel isolating at some times and leads to anxiety. Feeling overwhelmed sometimes is normal. However, one should not give into it. PhD is hard, and one should not feel embarrassed talking about stress and depression.
Coping with stress is very important to ensure you complete your doctorate successfully. Therefore, we are listing some important tips to help you manage your PhD stress. Follow these tips, and you will see an improvement in yourself. However, if these tips don’t do much for you, you should seek professional help.
Table of Contents
1. Share Your Feelings
As mentioned before, PhD is a highly stressful time. And not sharing your feelings with someone will only make matters worse. Therefore, the first step of PhD stress management is identifying the problem and sharing your feelings with someone.
Remember, anxiety, stress, and depression are not weaknesses. They can very well be treated. All you need is to identify and acknowledge you have a problem and find ways to resolve it.
2. Nurture Supportive Relationships
All PhD students should foster helpful and understanding relationships. Try to attend networking events as they will help you interact with like-minded people going through the same struggles as you. You can help each other. And even if you can’t help someone, just having someone who understands where you are coming from helps a lot.
Moreover, take time out for your relationships. Go out and have lunch with your family. Plan a date night with your significant other, or call a friend to catch up. You will feel better and more in control of your life.
3. Don’t Be Too Hard on Yourself
PhD consists of a lot of research and experiments. Not getting the expected results or hardly a successful experiment even when you have tried fifty times in your experiments can be depressing.
Moreover, you are also under constant scrutiny from your professors, advisors and other scientists. People judge your work, and a lot of your manuscripts are rejected by your advisors or from journals. All these rejections make you question yourself.
Despite all these situations, remember not to be too hard on yourself. Every cloud has a silver lining. And you will get there, too. You need to take a moment and relax before you begin the hard work again. Don’t let negative energy consume you when you need to be at your best.
Your value does not depend on your lab results or your publications. It also does not depend on how well you are doing compared to your colleagues. Instead, it depends on your hard work, commitment, and dedication. So, go easy on yourself.
4. Take Care of Yourself
With such a busy routine, one hardly finds time to take care of themselves. PhD students need to put long hours in the lab. They are almost always working. Sleep deprivation is common, and they don’t have any time to relax, exercise, or eat well. All of this adds up and leads to stress and anxiety.
Nothing is more important than your mental, physical, emotional, and psychological health. And while it may be difficult, it is important to be mindful of yourself. So, give yourself time, and take care of yourself.
Try to squeeze in a little exercise in your daily routine, even if it is just for five minutes. These simple things relax your mind and prepare you for the grind. Therefore, go out for a walk, do some yoga, eat healthily and give yourself some ‘me-time’. You will feel much better than before.
5. Celebrate Your Successes
When there are many disappointments in your PhD journey, you will also achieve many things you will be grateful for. They don’t necessarily have to be something big, either. Even simple things can lead to happiness. Therefore, we suggest you keep a gratitude journal and note one thing for each day that makes you happy or something you consider as success.
Small wins can make you feel better about yourself. Show off these achievements to the people who care about you and support you. You will feel accomplished and motivated to do better.
Completing your PhD is a great achievement. However, the path to success is long, difficult, and tiring. Don’t give up. You are going to get there eventually. Follow the tips we’ve mentioned to improve your mental health and deal with stress. And, if you think you need academic help, you can always use an online PhD dissertation writing service to buy dissertation services in UK. These services can help you complete your dissertation work, so you don’t get buried under stress and anxiety.
About the Author
Mark Guptil is an experienced dissertation writer working with PhD Dissertations. He has a PhD in marketing and is considered one of the industry’s best academic writers. Mark has vast experience helping students with their PhD dissertation work.
