The 8 Best Ways To Deal With Grad School Stress…Part II

Strung out, under-slept and questioning your entire decision to attend grad school in the first place? Here are 4 more pointers to help you to regain control of your life and take the edge off the grad school experience.

Part II (Part I is available here)

1. The not to-do list. From time to time you’re going to find yourself overwhelmed by your workload, stuck wondering where to begin. Acknowledge this: you have to limit the time you spend on projects of lesser importance. For starters, try re-ordering your “to do” list from highest to lowest priority. If you’re short on time or have a deadline, be wary of your conscious when it tells you, You must clean and sanitize your entire desk before starting your PCR! If it’s after 8 pm, that is an absolute lie.
2. A walk to remember.  A professor once told me, “Exercise is more effective than any antidepressant.” If you’ve been feeling down, take a break from your work and engage in a little self-help. Go for a walk, or try hitting the gym for 30 minutes. The time you spend outside of your lab will help you to remember long lost hobbies—things like, well…everything else in the world besides pipetting tiny volumes of liquid from one tube to another for the next several years.  Try a weekly running club for beginners, or make going for a walk your daily thing.
3. Thou shalt not only eat Dunkin’ Donuts sandwiches. Can you imagine what would happen if you fed your dog three cups of coffee and a bacon-croissant sandwich for breakfast every day for 6 years? Poor thing! Don’t kid yourself; make it a point to include homemade, fresh foods in your daily diet. You’re busy, and you don’t need anything else slowing you down.
4. Sweet dreams? Be sure to allot yourself at least 5-6 hours of sleep a night, catching up on extra hours when you can. You won’t survive graduate school pulling all-nighters Monday through Friday. You’re human, and you have only a handful of very basic needs that you need to address; sleeping is one of them. Alternatively, if you do decide to spend countless, sleepless nights at the lab, make sure that it’s for something your advisor will notice. Once exposed to the results of your hard work, he or she will be happy. Advisors can be happy, right?

Have a stress related, funny grad school story you’re willing to share? I’d love to hear it. Post it in a comment below, as well as a little information about how you overcame the problem.