Category: Mental Health

If you started your PhD a while back and for some reason, you would underperform, drop out from the programme, didn’t progress as much as your coworkers or found a traditional or non-traditional job outside academia, you would have been labelled as FAILURE! Failing to prove to be successful, failing for not fitting into the culture and ultimately failing to grow tough skin. Basically, you would put yourself into 5y of extra schooling, with lower than minimum wage salary, with no security for your family and future (by no means a comprehensive guide) and then this classifies you as a failure!

Continue reading “What growing tough skin as a scientist really means!”

This is a personal post so keep any judgement and unsolicited advice for yourself. Thanks

I have been suffering from eating disorders as far as I remember. I was a chubby kid and people used to tease me a lot because of that. I had low self-esteem and confidence in myself because all the boys were after the cute girls and not after myself. I just accepted that this was the way it was. Family and parents used to tell me “if they don’t see the good in you, they don’t deserve you!”. Fair enough, but when you are 15 that doesn’t serve you well. I lived my whole life thinking that my body was defining me, my value, my worth and what I had to offer to the world.

Then things changed.

Continue reading “How I keep my eating disorder under control”

It’s been a while since I wrote something for my website and the main reason is that I have many unhealthy relationships. One of these is with work. I am unable to stop and I need the feeling to be constantly busy to feel that I achieve something. I recently started seeing a counsellor to treat my eating disorders and while digging into the reasons why I tend to overeat at times, I realised that eating or cooking is a way to fill the time. I overload myself with work for the same reason, it’s a way to fill the time. So, I decided to take a step back and set my priorities. Last week my priority #1 was my Etsy shop. It was small business week so I decided to run a promotion and put some of my items on sale. I didn’t expect to sell so much so my main focus was going to the post office and creating personalised items during my spare time.

Continue reading “Mental Health crisis among grad students – Take a step back”

I am seriously uncomfortable talking about the topic of suicide and self-harm. But I was much more uncomfortable when I came across the news that 95 students died by suicide across England and Wales during the academic year 2017/2018. This is a shocking number. To raise awareness about this tragic reality, the University of Nottingham created a memorial to honour the memory of the students who decided to bring their life to an end. The memorial displays 95 pairs of shoes and this is part of the Suicide Awareness Week Programme organised by the Student’s Union at UoN.

Continue reading “Suicide prevention – #menshealthactive at UoN”

One of my strongest assets is that I am very good at managing my money. When I was small, my parents didn’t have a stable job and we didn’t have the luxury of buying cakes, Barbies or clothes. Everything was donated by rich relatives or the Church. Going to my friends’ house and playing was a good way to eat brioches and drink coke which was rarely bought in my house. Nor that I complain about this, it’s a different experience and definitely taught me how to be conscious with my money and work for everything I have. Finances for especially for students is a tough topic because many live on student’s loans, have part-time jobs and if they do have a scholarship, it might be just enough to survive (welcome real life).

Continue reading “How to manage and save money – a personal perspective”

I have been a student for almost 10 years now, I have little savings, no money for my pension and I am almost 30yo and currently live on a student salary. Like many of us, we decide to do a PhD for passion not definitely with the ambition of becoming rich folks. Many of us suffer from chronic anxiety, tend to burn out easily and have little time to rest and put their wellbeing as a priority. There is always this misconception that self-care is expensive because the idea media and social media portray about self-care is a weekend in fancy and expensive resorts, hotels and spas. In my opinion, self-care is more about the little things that you do every day to feel better about yourself and release all the stress after a long day of work. How did I do that?

Continue reading “Cheap self-care for savvy students”

This article was originally published on the website PhD Depression and can be found here.

Meditation and mindfulness are buzzwords nowadays. Be in the moment, stay in the moment, be present, wasn’t I present enough before? As far as I remember, I have been suffering from depression. It didn’t start with my PhD. Graduate school made it worst. At the end of my second year, summer 2017, I reached one of my lowest points. I failed my annual review exam, I was breaking up from a difficult and toxic relationship, I had to move out of my old house and move to another lab. The situation was really bad and I was seriously thinking of dropping out of the programme. Despite the anxiety, I was wise enough to reach out to the counselling service at the University and took a break to visit my family in Italy.

Continue reading “The Mindful Way Through Depression”

Crocheted brain wall decor available to purchase from my Etsy Shop, check here.

Over Christmas, I went back to Italy to see my family. It had the best time ever as I was finally anxious and depression free. Months of therapy, meds and permanent changes towards healthy habits really made the difference. Some negative thoughts are still there but I am doing much better at dealing with it. I took this time to tell my parents, in sciency words, a bit more about the neuroscience of anxiety and depression. I apologise if there is some inconsistency, my background is in chemistry.

Continue reading “The Neuroscience of Depression and Anxiety”

A recent lit review shared by @ph_d_epression on Twitter showed that doctoral students suffer from poor work-life balance. Not big news, I guess. This is a serious problem because grad students are supposed to be the new generation of scientists and academics. Building up the bad habit of poor self-care at an early stage will put you in a mindset of success in academia = struggle.
Continue reading “Managing anxiety as a student.”

The other day, I came across my New Year’s Resolutions 2018. I put together 12 goals, 7 about my personal life and 5 about work. Reading through, I realised that I achieved only 3 goals out of 12. I did get better at controlling my anxiety, I learned a lot about self-care and I have been making an afford to reach out to my friends more frequently. Not an easy task while you have depression and social anxiety, but I managed to do it.

Continue reading “Mindfully writing down my New Year’s Resolutions.”