As an academic, are you feeling particularly anxious, demotivated, fatigued and stressed? Are you trying hard to accomplish tasks, but feeling like you’re going nowhere? Let me introduce you to pandemic fatigue and inform you that you are not alone. It is well known that academia has a mental health problem. A 2018 Nature Biotechnology paper found that nearly 40% of bioscience graduate students in the US suffered from depression. Another report on staff mental health at higher education institutes in the UK, found that nearly 43% of academic staff exhibit symptoms of mental illness; nearly twice the prevalence in the general population. Add a global pandemic and lockdowns into the mix and we have a perfect storm.
2020 has been particularly difficult due the COVID-19 pandemic. At the beginning of the year, it seemed inconceivable that the majority of the world’s population would be trapped indoors for months on end. Several studies have shown that lockdowns, sometimes endured in isolation, have had a detrimental effect on mental health. According to research out of the UK, the incidence of reported mental health problems went up by 8.1% during the peak of the pandemic in spring/ summer. The reasons for this are manifold: Social isolation, job and housing insecurity, health anxiety, loss of healthy coping mechanisms and lack of access to support services.
Pre-existing mental health in academics is definitely exacerbated by this seemingly endless pandemic. Academics who did not report mental health struggles in 2019 appeared to develop anxiety and depression few months into the pandemic, at the height of the worldwide national lockdowns. A survey of 4000 STEM Ph.D.’s in the US concluded that during this time, the number of students with generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) and major depressive disorder jumped by 13% and 19% respectively.
According to Susanna Harris, founder and CEO of PhD Balance, doing a Ph.D. and functioning in academia can be isolating even in normal times. Quarantine has meant a sudden loss of coping mechanisms such as going outside to exercise, interacting with friends and family, visiting a therapist and even going on a holiday. These daily difficulties are overlaid with fear and anxiety about an uncertain future. Students who were supposed to finish their Ph.D. this year are having to delay graduation and many in the UK have been informed that their funding will not be extended in spite of months of lost time. A survey conducted by Nature found that 60% of postdoctoral scientists reported that their career prospects have been affected by the pandemic. Most alarmingly, 51% said they were actively considering leaving academia due to a double whammy of work- related pressure and the pandemic.
Professional setbacks can take a serious toll on one’s mental health. So how can academics cope under these circumstances? Clinical psychologist Desiree Dickerson has compiled seven useful tips to manage mental health and wellbeing. The crux of her advice is: handle stress with healthy eating, good sleep and exercise, manage expectations and maintain connections (virtually of course!). Dr. Dickerson also has a useful compendium of online resources offering varied advice on handling mental health during COVID-19. Another brilliant resource, which has been extensively discussed on Club SciWri, is PhD Balance. This is particularly relevant for graduate students and postdocs who may be especially vulnerable at this time.
I am a postdoctoral research fellow at the National University of Singapore. This country has handled the pandemic brilliantly. However, living under tight restrictions does take its toll, even if those restrictions ironically allow us to have more freedoms than people in the US and Europe. From a personal perspective, the feeling of being trapped in an endless cycle, with the end so near yet so far has been difficult to deal with. This has definitely affected my academic output. Some weeks, I have just enough energy to do the bare minimum work and finding the motivation to keep going is a constant struggle. It took academic twitter to make me realise that I was not alone in feeling this way. Early into 2021, there is light at the end of the tunnel though. The advent of emergency vaccines means that we may be out of the pandemic stage of COVID-19 sooner than later. The job market will eventually improve, we will go on holiday again and meet up with friends and family we haven’t seen in so long. My message to readers of this article is this: Better days are ahead, and you are not alone.
Author:
Swathi Lingam is a research fellow at A*Star in Singapore, where she is developing novel cell therapy systems to treat age-related eye diseases. She had been a Ph.D. student at the University of Manchester, followed by a short post-doc at the University of Oxford before moving to Singapore. She is passionate about science communication and loves doing that through her blog “The Very Curious Biochemist”. Follow her on Twitter.
Editors:
Sumbul Jawed Khan is a Ph. D. in Biological Sciences and Bioengineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, where she studied the role of microenvironment in cancer progression and tumor formation. During her post-doctoral research at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, she investigated the gene regulatory networks that are important for tissue regeneration after damage or wounding. She is committed to science outreach and communication and believes it is essential to inspire young people to apply scientific methods to tackle the challenges faced by humanity. As an editor, her aim is to simplify, translate, and excite people about current advances in science.
Amrita Anand is in her 4th year of Ph.D. in Genetics and Genomics at the Baylor College of Medicine, Houston. She studies the reprogramming potential of certain key factors in the regeneration of mouse inner ear hair cells. She has been actively pursuing Science communication over the last three years as she enjoys bridging the gap between scientists and non-experts. As an editor, she wants to make science more accessible to the public and also hopes the hard work behind the science gets due credit.
Illustrator:
Disha Chauhan did her Ph.D. in IRBLLEIDA, University of Lleida, Spain in Molecular and Developmental Neurobiology. She has post-doctoral experience in Cell Biology of Neurodegenerative diseases and is actively seeking a challenging research position in academia/industry. Apart from Developmental Neurobiology, she is also interested in Oncology. She is passionate about visual art (Illustration, painting, and photography) and storytelling through it. She enjoys reading, traveling, hiking, and is also dedicated to raising scientific awareness about Cancer. Follow her on Instagram.
Saurabh Gayali recently completed his Ph.D. in Plant Molecular Biology from National Institute of Plant Genome Research (JNU), New Delhi. Currently he is DBT RA at IGIB (New Delhi) and his research focuses on finding binding associations of Indian plant metabolites with human pathogen proteins, creating a platform for future plant extract based drug discovery. He has keen interest in data analysis, visualization and database management. He is a skilled 2D/3D designer with a specific interest in scientific illustration. In leisure, Saurabh plays guitar and composes music, does photography or practices programming. Follow him on Instagram.
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